timber drawer

A timber drawer is a miner tasked with extracting wooden props, also called pit props or pit timber, from worked-out sections of underground seams after coal or ore extraction is complete. The job is straightforward in concept but physically demanding and genuinely hazardous. Once a coal face has been extracted or a mineral section exhausted, the wooden supports that held up the roof during work must be removed and recovered for reuse or disposal. The timber drawer does this extraction work, often in unstable conditions where the immediate overhead strata have lost support.

Pit props are typically small-diameter roundwood, commonly from softwoods such as Scots pine or spruce, ranging from 4 to 8 inches in diameter and 4 to 10 feet in length. They are driven vertically or near-vertically between floor and roof to support the working space. Once mining has moved on, props can be pulled out and moved to the surface for reuse, reducing timber costs for the operation. The timber drawer, sometimes working alone or in pairs, would use hand levers, chains, and sometimes explosive charges to dislodge props jammed by settlement and ground pressure.

The danger lies in what happens when a prop is pulled. Ground settlement often means the strata above presses down heavily. Removing a single prop can trigger sudden collapse of roof material, rockfalls, or the dangerous drop of heavy timber from above. Many timber drawers worked in darkness or minimal light, feeling their way through the props and testing them before pulling. The work was carried out in returned roads, pillar recovery areas, and worked faces where roof control had degraded.

This was a recognized occupation in deep coal mines across Britain, continental Europe, and other regions with extensive underground mining. The term appears in mining records, colliery wage books, and injury reports from the 19th and 20th centuries. Timber drawing was often considered a job for experienced miners who understood ground behaviour and could judge the stability of a section before attempting prop extraction. As modern mines adopted mechanical support systems, roof bolting, and powered extraction methods, the role of the timber drawer gradually disappeared.