Billy-Montigny
commune in Pas-de-Calais, France
Billy-Montigny (French pronunciation: [bili mɔ̃tiɲi]; Picard: Bili-Montini) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region in northern France.
Geography
An ex-coalmining industrial town situated just 4 miles (6.4 km) east of the centre of Lens at the junction of the N43 and D46 roads. The coal lasted just over 100 years, the last pits closing in the 1960s.
Population
Sights
The church of St. Martin, dating from the nineteenth century.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery.
History
The history of the area remains marked by the Courrières mine disaster which resulted in 1,099 casualties on 10 March 1906 in the area of the communes of Billy-Montigny, Méricourt and Sallaumines.
“Billy-Montigny” enters the record as commune in Pas-de-Calais, France. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Billy-Montigny, commune and Pas-de-Calais can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Billy-Montigny” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Billy-Montigny, commune and Pas-de-Calais provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q772803. VIAF identifies the subject as 239236158. Authority coordinates are 50.418, 2.912. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1906.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Billy-Montigny”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Billy-Montigny primary sources, Billy-Montigny archive and Billy-Montigny research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Billy-Montigny”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Billy-Montigny” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.