Ralphs Mine Memorial Huntly

Huntly's mining heritage was wide reaching and its legacy continues, but the Ralph mine was the first.

Captain Anthony Ralph, who served in the Waitato militia during the land wars was granted land for his efforts in 1874, called his company the Taupiri Coal Mining Company, and opened the mine two years later. This mine and others run by his family operated as the town's biggest employer until WWII. Several others started on in the surrounding districts and operated at a profit for decades. Places like Ralph's mine were where immigrants from Scotland, England merged with Maori to form a healthy and robust working class. They were so strong and tight that they managed to stick out three months of the 1913 general strike together.

There had been a flood, which caved in the roof at Ralph's mine in 1890 and five men were lost. But worse was to come.

On 12 September 1914, at 0720, 43 miners were killed in an explosion in Ralph’s mine. The cause was thought to be the same as at Kaitangata, a miners torch igniting firedamp, which is a methane gas byproduct of coal extraction. Securing and recovering the bodies was a mammoth and also dangerous task, which took fifteen days altogether. Even reaching the site of the explosion took several hours, and underground fires kept flaring and hampering the recovery.

The ensuing Royal Commission Report demanded safety lamps be used. And Ralph's Mine was closed, but the Taupiri Coal Mining Company's other pits continued.

What we have here off Shand Lane, by the State Highway overbridge, was a long time in the making. Thanks to the Huntly Lions Club it was finally complete in 2014 for the anniversary of the event, by which time the streetscape had also undergone an upgrade.

An original marble plaque had been cemented in two different positions upon the BNZ bank after it lost it's first position when Town Hall which was built upon the closed pithead was demolished. Upon the centenary, it was joined by a replica of a mine poppet head and a larger memorial stone. Another of these sculptures along with a memorial stone are in the local cemetery alongside the very sobering headstones of those who were killed.

A block to the south is the Waikato Coalfields Museum, which is full of information.

Image Credit: Huntly Lions View of the Ralph's Mine, a coal mine at Huntly, photographed by William Archer Price, circa 1910s. Inscriptions: Inscribed - Photographer's title on negative -bottom left: Ralphs Mine. Huntly. 220. Quantity: 1 b&w original negative(s). Physical Description: Dry plate glass negative 6.5 x 4.75 inches Ralph's Mine at Huntly, ca 1910s. Price, William Archer, 1866-1948 :Collection of post card negatives. Ref: 1/2-001763-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. natlib.govt.nz/records/22800119, View of the coal mine at Huntly, owned by the Taupiri Coal Mining Company. Photographed by Albert Percy Godber in 1910. Dated from other images in the Godber album. Archives New Zealand from New Zealand -**Ralph Mine Disaster (1914)