This ambulance served the Lumpsey mine – just outside Brotton, from 1907. Injured miners were usually taken to the Cleveland Cottage Hospital, which was supported by local mine owners, and by the miners themselves through a contribution of tuppence (2d) a week. The ambulance was designed to be as lightweight as possible to help speed up the journey. There was space for a stretcher in the carriage and for the driver and attendant to sit at the front. Some local mining companies, who rented cottages to their employees, allowed them to stay rent free if they had been injured as a result of their everyday mining work.
Before the introduction of the ambulance, casualties were taken to the hospital by handcart, a journey of about a mile – up hill. Lumpsey finally closed in 1954 & the ambulance was eventually identified being used as a garden shed before being restored by apprentices at ICI.
Image courtesy of Cleveland Iornstone Mining Museum