Durham Mining Museum - Newspaper Articles (original) (raw)

6th September 1922

Pit Disaster

Big Death-Roll At Whitehaven

Miners Entombed By Explosion

Under The Sea.

(From Our Special Correspondent.)

Whitehaven, Sept. 5, 7.30 p.m.

I arrived in the colliery yard of the new Haig Pit, belonging to the Whitehaven Colliery Company Limited, half-an-hour ago, just after another load of bodies of victims of this morning's explosion had been brought up. At 5 o'clock the mangled bodies of only three poor fellows had been recovered after eight hours hard, dangerous, and greatly impeded work by the numerous rescue parties who have been descending in succession since the disaster occurred, but the total has now swelled to seventeen.

As regards the remaining members of the shift that went down at 6 o'clock this morning, Major Scoular, secretary of the Cumberland Coalowners Association, informs me that there is absolutely no hope of bringing alive out of the pit anybody who was involved in the explosion.

The colliery yard is crowded with dry-eyed but woe-begone women, as well as colliers and others interested and waiting to help, if help, either medical or spiritual, should perchance be of use, but the row of waiting motor ambulances is a grim sign.

Neither doctors nor nurses have been wanted, except for one man, who was mortally injured and died as he was being carried into the Whitehaven Infirmary. The three dead bodies already identified are those of :—

Robert Macready, of Newhouses, Whitehaven.

Robert Telfer, of Harras Moor, Whitehaven.

and

James Robinson, Hensingham, Whitehaven.

Among the other men who went down, and whose names I have collected at the pit-head, are the following, which must include a number of the dead just recovered :—

Robert and Tom MacDowell (brothers), Thomas Gill Hooley, Thomas Robinson, Robert Denwood, Daniel Macready (father of the man already identified), another Macready (his son), George Watson, J. W. Sparks, and another Sparks (his brother), J. E. Pattinson, Joseph Moore, Jack Brewster, Michael Fell, Thomas Jackson and John Jackson (brothers), Leonard Hellon, W. Higgins, John Greaves, and Joe Greaves (his son).

The manager of the colliery, Mr. Robert Steele, was overcome at an early stage by his efforts with a rescue party down the mine, and had to be conveyed to the infirmary, but he is going on well. In his absence operations at the pit-head are in the charge of the directors of the company, who are up to the present quite unable to furnish anything which they would care to send out as an official statement.

The explosion occurred at half-past eight this morning. The shift had gone down at 6 o'clock and, according to my information, it comprised about thirty-two colliers and a number of "drifters" — men engaged in making a new road. These men, who were near the shaft, were able to get to the surface uninjured. The workings of the Haig Pit, Major Scoular stated, extend under the sea, and are connected with those of the same company's Wellington Pit, where 120 men were killed in an explosion in 1910. The present explosion must have occurred at a very considerable distance from the bottom of the shaft, and its focus may not yet have been reached.

Difficulties Of Rescue.

The work of the rescue parties was at first impeded by after-damp, but this, I understand, has now abated somewhat. There is great delay, however, owing to the numerous and heavy falls of roof which completely block the road. It was gassing to which Mr. Steele's condition was attributed. In the circumstances no surprise need be felt if all the entombed men are not found for a day or two.

The comparative smallness of the number of men engaged on the shift was put down by one informant to the newness of the pit. Several weeks ago a connexion was effected between the workings of the Haig Pit and the adjacent Wellington Pit, but these two pits are not working in the same seam. At the Haig Pit the seam was reached at a depth of 560 yards. Owing to the seams being at a different level it would be unwise to build hopes of rescue through the escape of any of the entombed men into the Wellington Pit.

The distance from the shaft bottom at which the explosion must have taken place accounts for the little sound it made, but there were two heavy concussions. The effect of these was to blow down and close the heavy iron lid of the upcast shaft, which was open, and then to blow it open again. A drift of visible gas or smoke was afterwards noticed proceeding from the shaft head.

Fortunately the pit was fitted with the latest type of ventilation gear, and this was not damaged. From the early batches of rescuers several men had to return, having been put temporarily out of action, but there was no lack of fresh helpers to take their place ; and all that possibly can be done is being done to get at the men still entombed. The disabled are coming round after treatment. Among those gassed besides the manager, Mr. Steele, is Mr. Broadie, manager of the same company's William Pit. The rescue parties state that numerous canaries that were taken down the shaft died of the after damp.

Drifters' Escape.

One of the drifters who succeeded in getting out unhurt said he reached the surface within a quarter of an hour of the explosion taking place. He and his companions were not hurt, and their great anxiety was as to which way they should take, as they could not tell, from what they had heard, in which direction the explosion had occurred. All they had to guide them was the apparent direction of the draught, and at the moment they did not know whether the sound they heard was from a heavy fall of roof or from an explosion further within the mine. A very different story will have to be told, I am afraid, of others in the mine. One of the dead men had had the irons blown off his clogs and he was terribly injured about the head. This man was Telfer. One of the entombed men, Michael Fell, is a son of the Rev. F. K. Fell, of Holy Trinity Church, Whitehaven. Mr. Michael Fell was studying for a mining surveyorship, and was at home in Whitehaven on holiday, but has decided to go down the pit during his vacation for the purpose of completing the requisite ninety hours underground to qualify him as an entrant for his final examination.

The rescue parties have by this time got a considerable way into the workings in the direction of the explosion, which took place apparently 1½ miles from the shaft. The colliery yard stands high above the town, virtually on the sea brows, which are neat cliffs of a height of five hundred or six hundred feet above sea level. A fourth man said to have been identified among the dead is Fred Joughin, of Arrowthwaite, aged 19.

9.15

Mr. T. Hope, of Schoolhouse-lane, Whitehaven, was working in another part of the pit four or five hundred yards from the place where the explosion occurred. In conversation with him I learned that his brother is one of the dead whose bodies have already been recovered. The two were not working together. My informant said "I did not hear the explosion, but a man and his son who were working a little way nearer the explosion did hear it, and they went and told all the men working round and about, a party of about eighteen in number, and I was one of them. We made our way to where we thought the explosion happened, but found that without proper tools we could do nothing because of the heavy falls. We were not impeded by gas at that time. We remained down about an hour, and then, finding we could do nothing useful, we came up. Fourteen of our party were colliers ; only a few were drifters."

Mr. Tom Cape, M.P. for the Workington Division and secretary of the Cumberland Miners' Association, and Mr. Evan Evans, local secretary at Whitehaven, went down the pit with one of the first rescue parties. Mr. Evans, on returning to the surface, informed me that at the beginning it was very rough and laborious work, but the mine is now clear of gas and there is no danger to the rescue parties. The conditions in the pit are as good as can reasonably be expected. Robert Macreadyand his brother and their father, Daniel Macready, are now ascertained to be among the killed, and I hear that a son-in-law of the elder Macready is also one of the victims. Besides the two pit managers, the men in the rescue parties who were gassed include three deputies named Jack Quaile, Tom Walker, and Daniel McGinty, who are all at the infirmary suffering somewhat severely.

10 p.m.

The number of bodies now brought up is twenty.

At the present moment the list of names of those among the twenty dead who are certainly identified includes, besides those already mentioned :—

William Hope, aged 24, of Schoolhouse-lane, single ; Leonard Hellon, Thwaite Villas, married ; Thomas and John White, brothers, single ; Jack Brewster, aged 30, single, a shot-firer, of Lonsale-place ; Thomas Gilhooley or Guilloni (said to be Italian), aged 50 ; Albert Power, aged 16 ; and Joseph Moore, aged 32. There is little doubt that the student, Mr. Michael Fell, has also perished.