Drawing. [Markham's Ponies] / by Gilbert Daykin, c1928. Pen and ink; [sight] 28.5x35.5cm in frame 49x62x2cm. Sketch for the oil painting, 1928. This was among the earliest works by Daykin before he received any formal training in art. Two miners are the 'ponies' working in the seam underground, lamps hung at waist, pushing wagon along on rails

Daykin worked as a miner at a pit near Sheffield and he produced a number of vivid artworks showing what the physical work of a coal miner was like down the pit. Sadly he was killed in 1939 in a mine shaft accident. Eleven artworks by Daykin were gifted by his family to the Science Museum in 1978.