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Murton Colliery lay halfway between Durham and Sunderland in the northeast of England and was owned by the South Hetton Coal Company. Although shaft sinking began in February 1838, the mine did not open until April 1843, the year this celebratory picture was painted. The seam was reached with much difficulty, expense, and loss of life. In the foreground a group of conspicuously clean sinkers (laborers who dug mine pits from surface to bottom by hand) can be seen lounging and chatting by a winding, picturesque stream during a break, while the viewer is shielded from seeing their dirty and dangerous working conditions belowground. For instance, in 1842, one sinker, Michael Robson (father of Britain’s first female serial killer, Mary Ann Cotton) fell down a mine shaft at Murton Colliery while repairing a pulley wheel. His remains were reportedly delivered to his family inside a sack inscribed “Property of South Hetton Coal Company.”

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016