Mining Memorabilia - Miners Lamps (Part II)
Electric Safety Lamps - By the early 1910s the role of the flame safety lamp as the only safe means of underground lighting in "gassy" mines was challenged for the first time. A new miner's light was starting to be introduced in the form of the electric safety lamp. Not only were the new wet cell electric lamps safer but they also offered higher levels of luminosity than had been previously possible with flame safety lamps.
Putter Boys from Addison Colliery (Co. Durham) c.1920s with electric safety hand lamps and naked flame "Midgie" lamps.
Initially such electric lamps were heavy hand held types which made them relatively cumbersome and unpopular in many coalfields. However by the 1940s the lighter weight and more familiar electric cap lamp, with its waist mounted battery pack, started to appear and was fairly rapidly accepted in most mining regions.
Ceag type self-servicing electric cap lamp & battery pack.
This lighter weight, more reliable and robust form of miner's light was to become the standard form of safety lamp in nearly all of Britain's Coalfields thereafter.
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Concordia type officials inspection lamp & safety torch.