Down in the Brunner Mine

DESCRIPTION: "They work in the heat, and the coal-black dust Sticks to the skin... We curse each day that the miner must Go down in the Brunner Mine." Even the air is dangerous. A cave-in brings "a hundred feet of rubble and coal," giving a day off; no one rejoices
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1967 (recording, Phil Garland, according to Mike Harding, _When the Pakeha Sings of Home: A Source Guide to the Folk & Popular Songs of New Zealand_)
KEYWORDS: mining death New Zealand
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Mar 26, 1896 - The Brunner Mine in Westland, New Zealand, collapses, killing 67 miners
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Colquhoun-NZ-Folksongs-SongOfAYoungCountry, p. 78, "Down in the Brunner Mine" (1 text, 1 tune) (p. 58 in the 1972 edition)
Garland-FacesInTheFirelight-NZ, pp. 38-39, "(Down in the Brunner Mine" (1 text)
RECORDINGS:
Barbie and Neil Colquhoun, "Down in the Brunner Mine" (on NZSongYngCntry)
NOTES [111 words]: According to Gordon McLauchlan, editor-in-chief, New Zealand Encyclopedia, David Bateman Limited, 1984, pp. 72-73, Brunner was "a locality 13 km east of Greymouth, formerly known as Brunnerton and declared a borough in 1887[. It] is near where Thomas Brunner ["one of the most intrepid explorers in the early days of NZ settlement"] discovered a coal seam in January 1848. The Brunner coalmine was the scene of the worst mine disaster in NZ hietory. On 26 March 1896, 67 men were killed by an explosion and release of gas, following the negligent and unauthorized firing of a shot in a disused section of the mine where no work should have been in progress." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: Colq058

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography