Story: Coal and coal mining

Pick-and-shovel mining (1st of 3)

Two late-19th-century West Coast miners pause in their labours. The traditional technique for extracting coal, which miners brought from Britain, depended entirely on muscle power. Miners chopped out coal with picks and then shovelled it into carts. In the sound file, former miners from Dobson on the West Coast describe the wet and sooty conditions in which they had worked.

Sound file from Radio New Zealand Sound Archives Ngā Taonga Kōrero. Any re-use of this audio is a breach of copyright. To request a copy of the recording, contact Sound Archives Ngā Taonga Kōrero (Spectrum 865 – the black seam/Reference number CDR742).

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library, Steffano Webb Collection (PAColl-3061)
Reference: 1/1-005354; G

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page:

Alan Sherwood and Jock Phillips, 'Coal and coal mining - The miners’ work', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/speech/7446/pick-and-shovel-mining (accessed 19 March 2024)

Story by Alan Sherwood and Jock Phillips, published 12 Jun 2006, reviewed & revised 14 Apr 2021