Miners remembered in stained glass
Scotland’s worst mining disaster has been commemorated in a pair of stained glass windows at St Joseph’s Church in Blantyre. On the morning of October 22 1877, an explosion caused by firedamp, a build-up of inflammable gases, killed more than 200 miners, including an 11-year-old boy, in pits 2 and 3 of William Dixon’s Blantyre Colliery, which had just been passed as safe by firemen.

More than half the victims were Catholic. The young parish priest, Fr Thomas Frawley, who conducted their funerals, was so profoundly affected he moved to Australia where he died four years after the disaster.

The windows, made by Rainbow Glass of Prestwick, complete a £700,000 renovation of St Joseph’s. They show Fr Frawley blessing miners and a mother and child, representing widows and orphans, gazing towards the pits. A total of 215 pinprick lights represent the dead men and the priest.