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Title: HEWERS OF COAL

Reference number: 2381

Date: 1939

Director: d. J.C. Elder

Production company: Elder-Dalrymple Production

Sound: silent

Original format: 16mm

Colour: bw

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 19 mins

Description: A group of boys intending to be mineworkers are given a short course of instruction explaining the elementary principles of coal mining and simple geology.

Credits: Directed and photographed by J.C. Elder
assisted by Isabel Elder

Shotlist: [Title missing] Boys intending to be mineworkers receive a short course of instruction explaining the elementary principles of coal mining and simple geology (.24); Boys in classroom (2.00); Group of boys taken on tour of site. They visit electrical and engineering shops, smithy and engine shed (4.09); They inspect coal cutting machinery, and watch demonstration (4.42); Miners handing in lamps. Boys inspect same (6.21); Canaries (8.02); Explosives and the method of firing shots are explained (8.15); First aid lessons and safety equipment (10.21); Boys are fitted with hats before going underground (10.42); Underground is the pump room (11.07); The coal face, coal cutting machine at work, use of explosives and firing a shot. Working at the coal face (14.52); Rocks are used to make the sides of a new roadway (15.25); Tubs are hauled to pit bottom and raised to the surface (16.27); Pit head. Tubs are unloaded to sort coal (17.50); After a month of instruction the boys have an oral examination and those who pass are given a certificate. Shots of exam in classroom (18.24); Now they are ready to start work, first at the pit head .. [brief shot of same] then on the haulage underground. Brief shot. And later, when old enough, they will become hewers of coal (18.59); The End (19.00).