Views needed on disaster memorial
1:50pm Thursday 9th July 2009 in Your Town
PEOPLE in Westhoughton are being invited to view and comment on plans for a memorial to remember the 344 men and boys killed in the Pretoria Pit Disaster nearly 100 years ago.
Westhoughton Town Council has commissioned artist Jane Robbins to sculpt a statue which will depict a miner crouched on a stone plinth, with a lamp and a pick lying beside him.
Councillors want to erect the memorial in Ditchfield Gardens, alongside a granite wall which will name every miner who was killed.
The disaster at the Hulton colliery on December 21, 1910, affected almost every family in the town.
Consultation on the council’s plans will be held in Westhoughton Town Hall on Wednesdays, July 15 and 22, from 7pm to 8.30pm; and in the library on Saturday, July 18, from 10am to noon.
