The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-12-05 00:00:00

DREADFUL COLLIERY EXPLOSION
NEAR WIGAN.

The explosion at Hindley Green Colliery, near
Wigan, on Tkuriday in last week, was one of the most
terrible that has ever Visited the district It was in
1853 that fifty-eight lives were lost at the works of the
Inot-hall Coal and Cannel Company, and in the fol-
lowing year eighty-seven poor fellows were suddenly
ushered into eternity; and now to those and to the
long lint of minor explosions which have since been
recorded has to be added the present catastrophe,
which already rivals, and lids fair to cut into the
shade, the first mentioned in the ghastly simplicity of
its details and in the length of the list of killed and
wounded.

The following particulars of this awful accident is from
the Manchester Examiner 01141

The colliery is the property of Messrs. John Scow.
croft and The pit was sunk in 1.364, to work the
Arley seam of coal, which at this ia,int lies much
deeper than at any other point in the immediate
nei4hbourhood, though some of the pits in the Wigan
district used for working the same seam of coal are
said to be much deeper. The depth of the shaft is
stated at from 310 to 312 yards. The Arley seam of
coal }wars the reputation id being highly gaseous ;
but the Hindley Green pit, wkich was thoroughly
well ventilated, has hitherto borne a good character,
and at any tate has been free from explodioas and
ingularly free from accidents.
That the accident arose from an explosion of fire-
damp is, however, beyond question • but how the
inflammable gas became ignited is unknown, it having
happened here, as in most similar instances, that those
alone who could have borne testimony to the causes of
the fire were, without exception, among the killed.
. . . . . .

r
- It
is, perhaps, impossible to state the preuse number
ro iot pe uns who were n the mine at the time of the
accident, but, OA nearly as can be ascertained, about
300 persons were employed in the mine, and of these
at least 250 were lowered into the shaft on Thursday
morning at six o'clock. The pit is worked in four sec-
tions, known WI the north-east, north-west, south-east,
and south-west sections. All are work on the same
levels, but the workings are divided, as respects venti-
lation, into two halves. The same shafts supply and
carry off the exhausted air, but at the bottom of the
pit the ventilation apparatus is divided into two
branches. It was in the north-west section in which
from sixty to seventy men were engaged, that the
explosion took t.lace, and its effects were immediately
or shortly felt in that division of the mine which
depended upon the same means of ventilation. On the
other side of the ventilating shaft, however, although
the ventilating system of the pit was entirely reversed
by the action of the explosion, the air remained
unaffected, and many miners remained in the two
sections it comprises for a considerable time after the
event. What is more remarkable is that, although
the explosion was accompanied by a report and a shock
which were heard and felt at a distance of a mile from
I the colliery, many ot the miners in these two sections
I were so entirely unconscious of either that they
I remained at work until mid-day, ignorant of the terrible
tragedy which had been enacted almost by their
sides, and which had worked desolation and woe which
was known and felt hours before in many homes around
the colliery, and, in some instances, in their own
households.

To the workers on the pit brow the accident an-
nounced itself at half-past eight o'clodc by awful and
unmistakeable signa—a dull, heavy thud, a rush of air
from the pit mouth, followed by a flame which blazed
for several seconde, and then thick volumes of black
smoke. _

No part of the mine appears to have caught fire ;
and the shaft having rapidly cleared itself, it was found
that no part of the pit gearing had beets thrown out of
order, with the exception that the ventilation id the
pit had been entirely reversed, the air rushing down
the pit by the upcast shaft, and returning by the down-
cast. This, at first, led to a fear that the pit was on
tire, and among the first measures taken at the brow
was to procure an engine to throw water down the
shaft. fly this means the ventilation was speedily
restored. The cages were then set busily to work, and
a number of men who had escaped injury from the
accident, together with others who had received hurts
nob of a dangerous character were first extricated.
Many of these men came out of the cages stripped to
their trousers, amt others almost naked; many were
scorched ; and most - filled with a terrible alarm—
rushed off in this pitiable conditi in to their h,iniem.
Others, more collected, remained to give the succour
that was required by their unfortunate brethren in the
mine.

The sad work of searching the workings of the north-
west section, in which it was at once known that the
accident had occurred, WU commenced without loss of
time. The underground manager. Mr. Ellis Drinnin,
who was himself at the bottom of the shaft at the time
the explosion took place, speedily organised a party of
about forty explorers, some of them volunteers from
the collieries adjacent, and descended the mine, of
which the ventilation had become very rapidly res-
tored. The first bodies were brought to the surfaoe
within an hour after the accident had taken place.
The explorers worked with unremitting zeal from ten
o'clock till nearly dusk, not desisting from their pain-
ful and arduous duty until all the dead in the seams
had been carried to the pit brow.
. . . .

The appearance of the bodies indicated that very few
had been killed by the explosion of fire-damp. Eight
or ten bodies, it is supposed of those men who Were
engaged on the immediate scene of the calamity, were
so fearfully scorched, disfigured, and, in some
instances, mangled, as to be unrecognisable. But the
great majority, had been choked by the action of the
terrible after-damp. Their faces were cab and placid,
and, even in the rigidity of death, bore the appear-
ance of sleep. Only a few bore the marks of gashes
they had received in falling on the rough surface of
the deep pathways of the mine.
In the case of fifteen or twenty of the dead, it is
painful to think that their lives were lost by confusion
resulting from alarm. Startled at their labours by the
shock of the explosion, they had become confused as
to the means of egress from the pit, and rushed to
meet the death they sought to avoid. Others, who
were found near the shaft, are supposed to have been
burned to death by the flames from the pit furnaces,
which were forced by the temporary reversion of the
ventilation into the adjacent roads.
. .

The d tale of the dead taken at the pit br3w
reached, at six o'clock, when the mine had been
thoroughly explored, the number of fifty-seven, and,
besides these, between fifteen and twenty men were
injured, and at lewd three are not expected to recover
from the effects of their hurts. Many of the injured
were only saved from death by the prompt labours of
the explorers, and when they were brought to the
surface were insensible. One who was apparently dead
was restored by the employment of artificial respire.
tion for nearly ten minutest. As the explorers pro-
ceeded they were joined by a number of gentlemen from
the adjacent collieries, willing to render all the mei stance
in their power, and shortly after noon the Government
inspector, Mr. Higson with his son, reached the pit,
aid at once descentlereto take part in the search.
The bodies, as they were recovered, were taken to
the workshop, in which a platform of loose boards had
lmen hastily put together. Before long the workehop
was tilled, and thirty-seven bodies were ranged in
ghastly rows. An adjoining room, used as a smithy,
was next called into requisition, and into this place the
remainder of the dead, with the exception of two or
three who were removed home, were conveyed.
Very shortly after the explosion the friends and re-
latives of the miners began to pour in from the neigh-
bouring villages, some of them miles distant, filled with
terrible-dread, struggling with a hope that only kept
alive despair. Most were women, wives and matrons,
whose husbands and sons, leaving them only three
hours before full of heart and hope, were now in the
mine which too surely was to them a pit of destruction.
Many were "weeping and wringing their hands," as
women must wl en their husbands are overcome by the
danger of their hazardous toil, but, as a rule, their be-
haviour was calm and heroic in a surprising degree.
Their grief found expression in awed silence; its
poignancy blunted by the very extent and greatness of
their calamity. Others appeared merely stultified, or
tern aatricken, unable to realise their loss. One had
lost a son, a brother, or a nephew ; another a father or
hueband ; in some painful instances two and three
relatives had been killed—one half a household swept
away at one fell swoop.
Several medical gentlemen soon arrived at the scene
of suffering, and rendered every assistance possible ;
and arrangements were made by the proprietors of the
eolliery for the temporary relief of the bereaved.
On Friday the melancholy work of preparing the
adlins for the dead, in which over twenty men were
eegaged, was carried on in the joiners shed at the
colliery under the directions and at the expense of the
proprietors et the mine. We may here add that the
shareholders, at a meeting held on Friday resolved to
contribute L'2so towards a fund which it is expected
will be immediately set on foot for the relief of the
bereaved, who in many instances have been altogether
unprovided for.
An analysis of the Let of dead shows that twenty
widows have been made, and at least fifty children left
fatherless by the disaster. Two cases are so ex-
ceptionally painful as to require mention. The chief
fireman, James Highton, leaves a widow and ten
ehihlren. His son was among those badly burned by
the furnace flames on Thursday, and was the tad who
dial on Friday. A miner, named Isaac Sargent, a
: MAU who was in the prime of life, has left a widow
and nine children. Many families besides the
Ilightone have eufferest a double bereavement, the
' system of small partnerships miller which the mine
was worked making it an afinoet invariable rule that
niembers of the sante family worked to2ether at the
[same face, sharing the Name danger, and in three in-
stances meeting the same fate. Am mg brothers
slain are two Tyldeders, aged respectiv.tly 18 and It; ;
two Southerns, aged 15 and 13 ; two Greenhalghtt,
aged 32 and 22, each leaving a widow and orphans;
two Stark it-s. aged 24 and 14 ; two Grundys, aged
18 and 15 ; and two Morriees, aged 17 and 14. In their
deaths they were not divided. Father and son were
killed together, as in the ewes of the Ramsdales, and
the Halliwells, uncle and nephew in the case of the
Kilpatrick.
In passing, through the straggling villagers of Hindley,
Hindle), Green, Hindley Common, and West Leigh,
the treat indifferent could not fail to be struck by the
number td dwellings, sometimes as many as three-ad-
joinimLeach other, where the white blinds were drawn.
It is sttgeeted that the pashock of a lamp may have
been tampered with, and its flame exposed in the in-
flammable gate This hazard unhappily finds some
eupport from the well-known careless hebits of some
gtf the workmen - it lwing only a few weeks since one
of the miners, himself a victim to the accident of
Thursday, was final a sovereign as an example to his
neighbours, for picking a padlock of his safety !anti.,
to pr msire a light for his pipe. It also derives some
corroboration from the fact that the explosion took
place at the breakfast hour, which was commonly with
many of the miners also the smoking hour.