There were many terrible disasters in the coal mining industry in the past in the UK. In Senghenydd in South Wales, a disaster in May 1901 killed 81 men and boys and on 14 October 1913, a disaster in the UK saw the loss of 439 miners and one rescue worker. A spark caused firedamp to cause a huge explosion, releasing an afterdamp of noxious gases. Company errors were blamed leading to the manager; Edward Shaw being fined £24 and the Company fined £1. Each miners’ life was worth 1s 1 ¼ d, about £6 today.
There have been disasters which have been followed by changes. In 1838 at Huskar Pit in South Yorkshire, heavy rainfall during a thunderstorm caused the pit to flood, eleven girls aged between eight and sixteen and fifteen boys between nine and twelve were drowned. There was a public outcry as many did not realise that young children worked in pits. In 1840 Queen Victoria ordered a Commission headed by Lord Ashley. Commissioners visited collieries and talked to many, including workers.
Children and women
Children as young as five worked down the pit sometimes up to ten or eleven hours a day. Trappers operated a trap door for ventilation reasons and often worked in complete darkness as candles were too expensive. Youngsters and women hauled wagons full of coal along wooden rails in complete darkness, sometimes crawling on all fours along narrow passages. Women pulled a tub of coal attached to a chain which fastened around their waist, whilst two small girls pushed the tub from behind. In East Scotland most women and girls were employed in coal bearing. They had to crawl with sacks of coal on their backs weighing up to 3 cwt along passages half-filled with water.
Women and girls did not work in the pits in County Durham or Northumberland. Illustrations by the Commissioners showed women and girls wearing trousers and nothing else due to the heat in the pit. These illustrations shocked Victorian society as the men were sparsely dressed too and both men and women were working together underground. It appears that the evidence of women wearing trousers shocked the public more than the children working underground for pitiful wages in dreadful conditions.
Lord Ashley’s Mine Act of 1842 went swiftly through the House of Commons, but it met opposition, led by Lord Londonderry and the Northern Coal owners when it reached the House of Lords. They had no objection to the exclusion of women and girls working in collieries but considered that the employment of young boys was essential. Amendments to the Bill were made one of which was reducing the age of boys working underground from thirteen to the age of ten. Women and children were replaced by much more expensive pit ponies.
Brandling Main colliery in Felling
In 1812, a candle igniting firedamp probably caused the violent explosion at Brandling Main colliery in Felling. 92 men and boys, the youngest being Thomas Gordon aged eight, perished. However 86 bodies were not recovered for another seven weeks. One body was never found. By then the putrid, badly decayed bodies could only be identified by personal effects.
Hodgson produced a pamphlet which raised public awareness about safety in mines. Subscriptions came in for widows and orphans, but it also led to the invention of the Geordie lamp by George Stephenson, then an engine wright at Killingworth Colliery and the Davy lamp by Sir Humphry Davy.
Hartley colliery
There was a dreadful accident at Hartley colliery on 16 June 1862 which resulted in the deaths of 204 men and boys. The beam of the colliery pumping engine snapped and along with debris fell down the shaft blocking it completely. The workers were trapped inside the pit with the broken ventilation system leading to the build-up of gas. Desperate attempts to release the trapped miners failed. When the rescuers finally broke through it was reported in the Evening Standard that “the exploring parties have seen little boys in the arms of their fathers, and brothers sleeping dead in the arms of brothers.”
Queen Victoria sent a telegram of condolence asking what had been done for the women and children. A fund was set up which raised £83,000 (over five million pounds today). Compensation was given and the rest put into a fund. The enquiry verdict was ‘accidental death’. However, the mining engineer Thomas Emerson Foster recommended the necessity for two shafts so there would be a means of escape. He also saw the use of the stronger and more expensive wrought iron rather than the cheaper cast iron beam as being vital. Ludworth Pit was an example of this in East Durham, being an escape shaft for the much bigger Thornley Pit.
On 29 May 1951 the picks of the coal cutting machine struck pyrites causing a huge explosion in Easington Colliery. Some men were rescued but 81 miners and two rescue workers lost their lives because of the build-up of carbon monoxide:
“The ‘last hope announcement’ was made fourteen hours after Tuesday’s morning’s explosion…It came from Mr Sam Watson, secretary of the Durham Miners, standing on the steps of a terrace house across the road from the pit gate. He told two hundred relatives and friends of the dead men “We must now take it there is no hope for the men.” (Nottingham Evening Post Thursday 31 May 1951)
Comment
Pyrites, ‘fools’ gold had destroyed men’s lives in their search for coal, ‘black gold.’ Coal had been ‘black gold’ for some. But it was not by accident that the search was ended abruptly with no forward planning for the employment of workers or what became the destruction of communities.
The deliberate destruction of the mines was done for political reasons and not for what is now considered to be necessary for the reduction of the use of fossil fuels in the fight against global warming which is devastating planet Earth.
It would be good outcome if from this disaster of the rapid loss of livelihoods that work towards a solution could begin to not only tackle the problem of global warming but possibly reduce its effects before it intensifies exponentially rendering many areas of the once green planet uninhabitable. Many lives were lost in colliery accidents. The need for fossil fuels is now rightfully questioned before many more lives are lost because of global warming.
