hurry

A hurry is the act of moving coal from the coal face or working area to a tramway, railway siding, or collection point within a mine. The term describes the intermediate stage of coal transport: it comes after extraction at the face but before the final haul to the surface or to the main processing area. A hurrier, also called a hurry worker or putters' assistant, performed this task, typically pushing or dragging coal along passages that might slope gently or run level through the mine.

The coal was moved in various containers depending on the mine's infrastructure and era. In older pits, it went into baskets, buckets, or wooden sledges; later operations used small tubs or hutches (wheeled containers running on wooden or iron rails). In mines without rail infrastructure in the working areas, the coal was hauled manually over short stretches by workers using strength and simple leverage. The work was extremely arduous: passages were often narrow, low-roofed, and uneven, requiring workers to push loads through confined spaces with minimal clearance.

Hurrying represented a significant cost in colliery operations because it was labour-intensive and slow. A single hurrier might be responsible for moving coal from several cutters or face workers throughout a shift. The efficiency of hurrying directly affected the pit's overall output, so mine managers paid close attention to the routing of passages, the gradient of the floor, the condition of rails, and the assignment of workers. In mechanized collieries, the hurrying stage was eventually replaced or supplemented by conveyor systems, but in many traditional pits it remained a manual operation well into the 20th century.

The term itself comes from the simple verb to hurry, meaning to move quickly or push forward, though the actual pace of coal hauling was dictated more by sheer effort than by speed. Regional variations exist: some districts used different terms like puttering or holing for related work, and the role of the hurrier varied depending on whether they worked independently or under a cutter or hewer. Young boys and women often filled hurrier roles because operators sought cheap labour, making the term also associated with the lowest-paid positions in the pit hierarchy.