This illustration (courtesy Durham Mining Museum), shows St Lawrence Colliery situated 1 mile east of Newcastle. The Pit was sunk in December 1832. The following reference to a Thomas Wigham appears in the 1842 Children's Employment Commission report of 1842, para. 88,

 

Thomas Wigham, St. Laurence Colliery: " Was down this pit when, his mother said, he was between five and six years old, a wee thing of a boy" (ibid. No. 268:p.623, 1.22).

 

The boy was likely to be Thomas, son to Ralph Wigham (1804-1849) - himself a coal miner, and Jane NICHOLS. Research shows there is no other Thomas Wigham of a corresponding age appearing in the Northumberland census of 1841. Ralph was son to Thomas Wigham (1772-1850).