ARTWORK and mining memorabilia related to a clergyman born in 1926, who was called up as a “Bevin Boy” to work in a coalmine at the age of 18 and was later involved in industrial mission, are on show at Cusworth Hall Museum, in Doncaster.

David Lawrance had won a scholarship to an art school in his home town of Ashton-under-Lyne in his early teens. After the war, he continued for a while to work in the mines, obtained a grant to do his A levels by correspondence course, did a first degree at Manchester, and eventually took an Oxford MA after studying for a BA in theology at Wycliffe Hall: “Not bad for a lad from Ashton, whose father was overseer in a cotton mill,” his daughter, Elizabeth, says.

He served in parish ministry in Oldham and Sheffield, as an RAF and a hospital chaplain, as well as a chaplain in Amman, Jordan, and later of HM Young Offenders Institute Wetherby. During the years 1974-85, when he was chaplain with the Sheffield Industrial Mission, he was allowed, by virtue of his experience, to go down the pits again. He made numerous drawings and sketches, charted the miners’ work in photos and his journal, and marched alongside Arthur Scargill at the Durham Miners Gala.

“It’s a rare view into life in the mining industry, above and below ground,” the curator of the exhibition, Nicola Fox, says. Items on display include a metal crucifix made out of railway fittings by miners at Rossington colliery, as well as Mr Lawrance’s mining helmet, pickaxe, Davy lamp, NUM badges, qualification certificates, letters, and journal.

CHRISTY LAWRANCEMen underground with tunnel machinery

He died in 1999. “He was a very good draughtsman. You can see that particularly in the drawings, in the very clear lines that he was able to bring to the paintings,” his daughter says. “The pen-and-ink sketches are amazing: incredible life drawings of life underground in the 1970s.”

Many of the works came to light when Mr Lawrance’s widow was moving, and the family were clearing the house. He exhibited paintings in the Royal Academy and the Mall Galleries in London, and the family prizes in particular his oil paintings of the canals and boats of Venice. Works have gone to Sheffield and Rotherham, some associated with the steelworks.

The free temporary exhibition runs until Monday 12 April. For details, visit: heritagedoncaster.org.uk/cusworth-hall