Colliers' Hall

The colliers' guild of the pits, which pays on a death underground, asks nothing of a man beyond competence and keeps its own workings books. It walls stopped roads, entering them with a date and no reason.

The Sarrum colliers, who hold that the Blackdown Stope collapse of 4606 was an ordinary fall on unsafe ground. The Sarrum hall of the pit trade, which takes boys below ground at fourteen.

Named with it

• Collier Bet Marchant of the Blackdown pits
• Guildmaster Osbert Quill · head
• Marchant · defends the hall's injury policy
• Collier Bet Marchant · speaks for the Blackdown men

Ties

• disagree with the Black Lantern Brethren over Blackdown
• one of the Halls
• at odds with the other halls over the stoppage clause
• hires in competition with the Bank Council
• differs from the Black Lantern Brethren on the Blackdown Stope

In the chronicle

• 4606 · The Blackdown Stope

At the table

The Brethren hold otherwise and have never written it down. Has never accepted the Articles' fourteen-day stoppage clause and gives notice when it suits; argues that common charges fall too heavily on membership. It pays a lump sum on a death in the pit but nothing for injury. Quill has twice walked out of an Articles panel. Holds that the Blackdown Stope was an ordinary fall. Offers a standing, never-claimed bounty at Blackdown for a plan of pre-4400 working. Hires companies separately from the Bank Council to establish what happened underground. Keeps no anniversaries.