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| Established | 1 May 2010 |
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| Location | 26 Hart Street Blackball, New Zealand |
| Coordinates | 42°21′51.6″S171°24′47.5″E / 42.364333°S 171.413194°E |
| Type | Social history |
| Website | www |
Blackball Museum of Working Class History (Mahi Tupuna) is a museum in Blackball, a small town on the West Coast of New Zealand, [1] [2] that opened in May 2010. The collection celebrates the role of working people in creating the nation and its wealth. [3]
The Blackball Museum of Working Class History Charitable Trust received funding in 2002 from the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board, the Blackball Residents' Association and the West Coast Development Trust to investigate the feasibility of a museum. [4] [5] The feasibility study was launched in 2003. [6] While the project was under development, the trust engaged in historical work such as recording oral histories of local residents. [7] In February 2010, the museum sponsored a memorial to the 1908 coal miners' strike. [8] The museum opened on May Day (International Workers' Day; 1 May) 2010. [9]
The museum's exhibits describe the 1908 miners' strike, which led to the formation of a federation of miners, which became the Federation of Labour in 1909. There is a permanent exhibition on Blackball’s coal mining history and a changing exhibition on an issue related to the area, or on a political issue. The museum also includes a memorial wheel dedicated to those who have died at work in New Zealand, with a special section for the 29 miners who died in the Pike River Mine disaster of 19 November 2010. [1] [2] The memorial is the site of an annual ceremony to commemorate the disaster. [10] The museum also hosts an annual Mayday Ceremony and forum.
The Ludlow Massacre was a mass killing perpetrated by anti-striker militia during the Colorado Coalfield War. Soldiers from the Colorado National Guard and private guards employed by Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) attacked a tent colony of roughly 1,200 striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Approximately 21 people, including miners' wives and children, were killed. John D. Rockefeller Jr., a part-owner of CF&I who had recently appeared before a United States congressional hearing on the strikes, was widely blamed for having orchestrated the massacre.
Blackball is a small town on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, approximately 29 km from Greymouth. Elevation is approximately 100 metres. The town was named after the Black Ball Shipping Line, which leased land in the area to mine for coal.
Big Pit National Coal Museum is an industrial heritage museum in Blaenavon, Torfaen, Wales. A working coal mine from 1880 to 1980, it was opened to the public in 1983 as a charitable trust called the Big Pit (Blaenavon) Trust. By 1 February 2001 Big Pit Coal Museum was incorporated into the National Museums and Galleries of Wales as the National Mining Museum of Wales. The site is dedicated to operational preservation of the Welsh heritage of coal mining, which took place during the Industrial Revolution.
Patrick Charles Webb was a New Zealand trade unionist and politician.
Solid Energy was the largest coal mining company in New Zealand and is a state owned enterprise of the New Zealand Government.
The Pike River Mine is a coal mine formerly operated by Pike River Coal 46 km (29 mi) north-northeast of Greymouth in the West Coast Region of New Zealand's South Island. It is the site of the Pike River Mine disaster that occurred on 19 November 2010, leading to the deaths of 29 men whose remains have not been recovered. The mine and its assets are owned by the Department of Conservation, whom, on 1 July 2022, assumed ownership and management following the dissolution of the Pike River Recovery Agency. The former mine site and its surrounding land are a part of Paparoa National Park.
Paul Allan Maunder is a New Zealand film director, playwright and cultural activist. He is best known for his 1979 film of the novel Sons for the Return Home by Albert Wendt, his 1983 play Hemi about the life of James K. Baxter, and his work in community-based theatre.
The Brunner Mine disaster happened at 9:30 am on Thursday 26 March 1896, when an explosion deep in the Brunner Mine, in the West Coast region of New Zealand, killed all 65 miners below ground. The Brunner Mine disaster is the deadliest mining disaster in New Zealand's history.
Mining in New Zealand began when the Māori quarried rock such as argillite in times prior to European colonisation. Mining by Europeans began in the latter half of the 19th century.
The Brunner Mine was a coal mine on the West Coast of the South Island in New Zealand.
Two separate explosions in 1903 and 1908 at Hanna Mines, coal mines located in Carbon County, Wyoming, United States, caused a total of over 200 fatalities. The 1903 incident was Wyoming's worst coal mining disaster.
Hamstead Colliery in Hamstead, England, produced coal between 1878 and 1965, by mining the South Staffordshire 'Thick' coal seam. It suffered a major fire in 1908 in which 26 men died.
The Pike River Mine disaster was a coal mining accident that began on 19 November 2010 in the Pike River Mine, 46 km (29 mi) northeast of Greymouth, in the West Coast region of New Zealand's South Island following a methane explosion at approximately 3:44 pm. The accident resulted in the deaths of 29 miners.
George Gatonby Stead was a notable New Zealand grain merchant, racehorse owner and breeder, and businessman.
People have worked as coal miners for centuries, but they became increasingly important during the Industrial revolution when coal was burnt on a large scale to fuel stationary and locomotive engines and heat buildings. Owing to coal's strategic role as a primary fuel, coal miners have figured strongly in labor and political movements since that time.
Bentley Colliery was a coal mine in Bentley, near Doncaster in South Yorkshire, England, that operated between 1906 and 1993. In common with many other mines, it suffered disasters and accidents. The worst Bentley disaster was in 1931 when 45 miners were killed after a gas explosion. The site of the mine has been converted into a woodland.
The Paparoa Track is a 55.7 km (34.6 mi) shared hiking and mountain biking track located in Paparoa National Park in the South Island of New Zealand. The track was created as a memorial for the 29 miners who lost their lives in the Pike River Mine disaster. The track is the tenth Great Walk to be created and has been fully open since 1 March 2020. It was the first addition to the Great Walks in 25 years.
The Pike29 Memorial Track is a hiking track located near the Paparoa National Park in the Grey District of the South Island of New Zealand. The track was created as a memorial for the 29 miners who lost lives in the Pike River Mine disaster. The track is a branch of the Paparoa Track, the tenth Great Walk created. Both tracks were originally scheduled to open in 2018. The Pike29 Memorial Track opened in February 2024, four years after the Paparoa Track. The Pike River Mine portal features a memorial and interpretation centre.
Graeme Axford was born in Greymouth, New Zealand. He is a human rights, disability, and consumer advocate.
The 1908 Blackball miners' strike was industrial action that happened when seven miners in the small town of Blackball, on New Zealand's West Coast, were dismissed for taking longer than their allocated fifteen minutes, for lunch. This was one of many issues that were causing discontent within the coal-mining industry that was set up as a series of capitalist enterprises to meet the shipping needs of Britain as an imperial power. When Blackball township was established, the mining company provided low-quality living and working conditions for the miners and after the town became populated by immigrants with union experience overseas, some of the grievances that eventually resulted in the strike emerged. The strike has been seen as a formative event in New Zealand history because of the successful outcome for the miners from the eleven-week strike by the use of direct action and organised unionism. This was the first real challenge to the Arbitration Court, set up under legislation by the Liberal Government in 1894 to support mediation in industrial disputes, and highlighted the difficulties of getting a resolution because of the wide range of political, social and cultural factors that resulted in a degree of intransigence by both the miners and the mine company. A number of the leading strikers subsequently became leaders in the political labour movement.
