South Normanton Mining Disaster Memorial
South Normanton Parish Council are extremely proud to announce that a new memorial plaque and informational signage board have been installed at the McArthur Glen East Midlands Designer Outlet to commemorate and remember the eight men who sadly lost their lives at South Normanton Colliery in 1937.
Tuesday 15th February marked a very poignant date in South Normanton history as this was the anniversary of the mining disaster when two violent underground explosions ripped through the Waterloo Seam at South Normanton Colliery (Winterbank Pit) on that day in 1937. A large rescue effort was involved to locate and help those trapped in the debris and rubble. Unfortunately, seven men were killed in the accident, with an eighth man dying from his wounds a week later. Several other miners were burned and injured.
The memorial event went ahead despite the terrible weather and was attended by Councillor Andrew Joesbury representing South Normanton Parish and Bolsover District Councils, David Jackson (Outlet Manager) and Kate Atkin (Marketing Manager) representing McArthur Glen East Midlands Designer Outlet and local historians Roger West and Graham Hunt. The memorial was also covered by the Bolsover TV team interviewing both the outlet manager David Jackson and Cllr Andrew Joesbury.
All this came about after local historian Roger West had written a feature for the Derbyshire Life magazine about the South Normanton Mining Disaster which was published in the March 2021 edition. Mr West contacted Cllr Andrew Joesbury to ask if this tragic, but important part of our mining heritage could be in some way be commemorated, paying a lasting tribute to the local men who had lost their lives in the disaster.
Cllr Joesbury in turn, reached out to the outlet manager, David Jackson, to inform him about the mining disaster and its importance, not only to the site, but to the local area and its heritage. The McArthur Glen East Midland Outlet was built on the site of the former South Normanton Colliery, closed in 1952 and then Winterbank NCB Transport Deport, which closed in 1988. Mr Jackson, along with his marketing management team, agreed that a permanent memorial to commemorate the event would be a great idea and started work on organising the informational signage and memorial plaque now on public display at the outlet.
The eight local men who lost their lives in the South Normanton Colliery mining disaster were:
Edwin Samuel Hill, aged 19 years.
John Vardy, aged 25 years.
Frederick Pride, aged 30 years.
John Marriott, aged 38 years.
Willis Lambert, aged 45 years.
Percy Ansell, aged 45 years.
Everett Rees, aged 54 years.
Henry Willis, aged 59 years.
