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Situated at the Blantyre Miners Welfare on Calder Street is a 6ft monolith dedicated to the miners who lost their lives in the Blantyre mining disaster, which occurred on the morning of 22 October 1877. Pits No. 2 and No. 3 of William Dixon’s Blantyre Colliery were the site of an explosion which killed 218 miners, the youngest being a boy of 11. The accident left 106 widows and 300 fatherless children.
On one side is an eye-catching mosaic, perhaps put there to bring some colour and cheer to the memorial that commemorates one of the darkest days of Lanarkshire’s industrial past. On the other side are dark grey tiles with emblems of the county’s mining history.
There are other memorials in Blantyre to commemorate this disaster, including a statue on Westerpark Avenue, a monument in Dalbeth Cemetery off Glasgow’s London Road and a monument in with a list of names in Blantyre Cemetery.
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