Wigan? Coalopolis?

Some still claim that Wigan was a coal mining town, not a mill-town.

Whatever your opinion, what do these figures tell you?

Wigan Parish mid-19th century census occupations figures ......


Cotton Manufacture - 3,122

Weaver - 1,620

Miner (Coal) - 626

What about Pemberton, was that a Coalopolis ?

The 1921 census. Number of employees Pemberton Colliery company. 3,444. Number of coal miners working nearby. 19,053.

Housey !

"Number of coal miners working nearby. 19,053."

Would that be in all the 1,000 coal mines within 5 miles of Wigan?

How many were employed in the mills 'in WIGAN' (ie: not the mills within a 5 mile radius of Wigan, just in Wigan.)

And Pemberton was a place in it's own right until 1904 when it was annexed by Wigan, maybe Wigan wanted the coal wealth of Pemberton ?

Was there and if so where was Pemberton Town Hall ?

On an old map from 1914 there is a building called Central Hall in Pemberton which is linked to a complex of buildings behind it LINK that building looks to have been replaced by buildings built post WW2, and they are where the Heron Store is located in Pemberton now, but on the front of those buildings there is a stone plaque, which looks to me as though it came from the buildings which were there before those buildings were built, and the name on the plaque is 'Central Buildings' LINK and the location would have had the old Pemberton Town Hall, Police Station and the main Church of England (St John's) Church in the same place, so that must be where the old Pemberton Town Hall was located

I see Tonkers point, there were no pits in Wigan ( Tonkers Wigan ) but, there are Mills, Trencherfield, Eckerleys and a windmill in Haigh hall

And Wigan had water, because Mills need water, waterwheels to turn the looms, and water to wash and dye the cottons, and Wigan being at a low point was and is at the conflooences of several tributaries of the River Douglas, these being Close Brook, Barley Brook, Glass Brook, Clarington Brook, Poolstock Brook, Hawkley Brook, Sniffy Brook etc

Not being one to contradict the Tonkerator, when they were building the new (old Olympic!) swimming pool down Library Street, they had to dig down into the foundations.

The old Pavilion Cinema had stood there for many years before then and was closed and demolished in the late 50s due to subsidence. I heard that (don't know if it's true or not) when the JCBs went in and started digging, they found many skeletons, and the story was that a mine had collapsed and killed them - OR - they'd discovered an ancient burial ground. So maybe there was a pit IN Wigan a couple of centuries ago.

Does anyone know the real story behind this, or is it just an Urban Myth?

So Wigan had the water and Pemberton had the coal, add those together and what doo yoo get ?

A lot of pollution

" Pemberton was a place in it's own right until 1904 when it was annexed by Wigan"

Pemberton wasn't "annexed by Wigan". The two local authorities were 'merged' due to Wigan, alone, not having a high enough population count to be a County Borough by itself.

All those figures suggest to me is that the cotton industry was more Labour intensive than the mining industry.

Can you tell us how many employees the average mine of the time had against the average mill of the time?

Stardelta

I haven't got a cloo

and maybe a pit could fit in it around 20 of those mills by size ? .

There must have been a lot of miners because they opened a mining college

Wigan has always been more well known as a mining town rather than a cotton town as it never had the same number of mills like nearby Bolton and other Lancashire towns.

And it didn’t have the immigrants from India and Pakistan like Bolton Burnley etc

Cotton was king in Lancashire 2000 cotton factories in
Lancashire alone until American civil war and slavery

"In 1860 there were over 2500 cotton mills in Lancashire employing close to half a million workers. The vast production of cotton sheeting from the Lancashire mills was such that the output was measured in miles. "

Do any of you coal people have an opinion about using warm water from closed coal mines to heat places on the surface LINK I mean the Bickershaw Mining Complex, comprising of the three Golborne, Bickershaw and Parsonage Collieries, must cover a massive area underground, and they were deep, the Parsonage Colliery was the deepest in Europe and the deeper the old coal mine is, the hotter the water is

One hectare of solar heating panels could (that word is important, remember it) heat enough water for the whole of Mora d'Ebre, a town in Spain, at a much reduced cost to the residents.
It follows that somebody, or some group of individuals, wouldn't make as much money as they do with the current system. So, for that reason, it ain't going to happen.
And it's the same with solar power.
If this 'idea' comes to fruition, it will have to generate revenue. Without that it won't happen.