This lamp boasted a solitary copper gauze, an adjustable ceramic burner with a pricker wick, and an oil-based mechanism. Its condition remained superb. The lamp was procured in Derbyshire, an area replete with diverse mineral mines. In this region, lamp locking wasn’t necessary.

Included images show a full brass variation of the Rothwell lamp. It’s worth noting that Rothwell also engaged in the production and distribution of similar lamp models to other enterprises.

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The notable collieries under the Wigan Coal and Iron Company umbrella in 1896 included the Alexandra, Bawkhouse, Bridge, Lindsay, and Meadow Pits in Haigh. Among these, Alexandra Pit employed more than 650 workers, while Lindsay Pits had over 350. In Aspull, the Crawford, Kirkless, Moor, and Woodshaw Pits collectively employed more than 1,000 individuals. Further collieries extended across Westhoughton, Hart Common, Hindley, and Standish. The Wigan Coal and Iron Company emerged as the most significant colliery owner on the Lancashire Coalfield, employing 9,000 workers during the 1920s. Their operations included the Parsonage Colliery in Leigh, where shafts sunk between 1913 and 1920 reached unprecedented depths for the era.

The company’s endeavors even extended to an iron ore mine near Dalton in Furness, known as Bercune pit, until 1898. In 1930, a significant amalgamation occurred when The Wigan Coal & Iron Co. Ltd joined forces with the Pearson & Knowles Coal & Iron Co. Ltd to establish the Wigan Coal Corporation. At its zenith, the company employed approximately 12,300 individuals across their underground and surface operations, with this number excluding those engaged in iron ore mines or the iron works itself.

The post Early Clanny-type J.H. Naylor lamp, once owned by Wigan Coal & Iron Company appeared first on Old Flames.

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As far as I know, there were 9 different colour bezels for the lamps and a variety of coloured helmets. Some collieries I believe, tried to introduce a colour code, made up of a combination of the colours of lamps and helmets to identify the workforce, with regard to who and what they were. I never heard of one that was successful.

– Information provided by Bosuns Mate.

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The brass Teale is a radiator/sump heater, and. I suspect the steel lamp with the circular lock was used as one too. The steel lamp had had the locking ring and the lug for the lead slug ground off, very rough job, and the fuel cell was badly marked too. Also, the porcelain burner was missing. As I said before, it’s amazing what you can do with basic tools, but there is a limit. A good and very talented friend of mine made a new locking ring for me, and I was able to make a template from another lamp to drill the holes in it. I also had to make a new locking lug, and solder it on. So far so good, then I saw this wreck of the brass one, which had a porcelain burner. I bought it, and the end result was one nicely restored Teale.

It was then that I decided to conduct an exercise in futility. The brass Teale had been exposed to so much long term intense heat, the brass around the inlet air holes was disintegrating, and was only just attached. I removed it, drilled out the old rivets, made some small brass right-angled brackets, and used small brass nuts and bolts to attach them back to the bonnet lid, filed the slots off the screw heads, then soldered the top back on. I had to make a new burner, just plain brass, but it doesn’t look too bad!

See also a good example of Teales trademark ‘ Star of David ‘, often these have been polished off.

– Information provided by Bosuns Mate.

The post When is a Miners Lamp not a Miners Lamp, Part 2 appeared first on Old Flames.

Included are pictures of lamps hardly distinguishable from miners’ lamps, in most cases made by mining lamp manufacturers. The image below shows three Radiator lamps all with different burners.

The one with the three wicks I found in an antique shop in Tavistock, Devon, many years ago, when I first got into collecting. I was sceptical about it, three wicks and no lock, and the gauze burnt out? but I bought it for £30. Not a bad price you may say, but this was 1988! I do have some genuine underground bi-folds, and a couple of times I’ve had to make the wick adjusters for them. First time I made one, I couldn’t for the life of me, match the threads 1/4” 20 tpi, but I found eventually, that the thread on the screw has a different angle, it was an Admiralty spec. and I had to buy a special tap to finish it.

The below picture is of a Premier, a Teale, and a Primo. All nice looking lamps, and should find a space in anybody’s collection. The Teale is a separate story on it’s own so, more to come!

– Information provided by Bosuns Mate.

The post When is a Miners Lamp not a Miners Lamp, Part 1 appeared first on Old Flames.

Through time this crack grew slowly, till it was nearly the full circumference. By this time, I had decided to try and get a relighter type from India, as I believe they are probably the last company to make approved miners lamps. Albeit approved by the Indian Government, I don’t know to what extent this approval would be recognised worldwide. I immediately met a problem, yes I could purchase a lamp and replacement glass, but I couldn’t pay by credit card or PayPal. It had to be a bank transfer to the required amount in Indian Rupees. I contacted an Indian Bank that had offices in Sydney and was told no, I couldn’t open an account, and no, they didn’t deal in cash. That left me scratching my head, wondering why it was called a bank? Back to JK Dey, could I leave it till I visited the UK? Doing it from Australia meant the money was going through a bank in Syria of all places. Yes, that was OK, so I eventually managed a transaction through Barclays. It didn’t go smoothly though, the bank did the transfer leaving JK Dey to pay the transfer costs. By this time I was back in Australia, so I offered to send them some cash to the value of £20 in Sterling or US$. Fortunately, they took pity on me and waived the deficit.

So that left me with a cracked glass, which I thought I might be able to repair with a windscreen repair kit. See the pictures for the result – not bad I thought! As another acquaintance once told me, a cracked glass is better than no glass at all!

– Information provided by Bosuns Mate.

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