YCBA Collections Search

In the nineteenth century, coal mining powered Britain’s rapid industrialization, which in turn drove momentous social and environmental changes. Carmichael’s painting celebrates the opening of Murton Colliery (or coal mine) in the northeast of England. At first glance, his subject appears rustic, almost a natural part of the landscape: a vision at odds with the dirty reality of the business. The bucolic stream would have in fact been formed by water pumped from the mine. The affable-looking men resting nearby with their pickaxes are “sinkers,” who would have excavated the pits at great risk to their safety. In the distance, women, some carrying their children, comb the ground for discarded coal to fend off the deprivations of rural poverty.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2025

Murton Colliery lay halfway between Durham and Sunderland in the northeast of England and was owned by the South Hetton Coal Company. Although shaft sinking began in February 1838, the mine did not open until April 1843, the year this celebratory picture was painted. The seam was reached with much difficulty, expense, and loss of life. In the foreground a group of conspicuously clean sinkers (laborers who dug mine pits from surface to bottom by hand) can be seen lounging and chatting by a winding, picturesque stream during a break, while the viewer is shielded from seeing their dirty and dangerous working conditions belowground. For instance, in 1842, one sinker, Michael Robson (father of Britain’s first female serial killer, Mary Ann Cotton) fell down a mine shaft at Murton Colliery while repairing a pulley wheel. His remains were reportedly delivered to his family inside a sack inscribed “Property of South Hetton Coal Company.” Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016