The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-28 00:00:00

THE DREADFUL COLLIPRY ,4 CCIDENT
IN NOR7IIUMBERLAND.

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE,
MONDAY MORNING.
At half-past 3 o'clock yesterday morning the
work of bringing up the bodies of the unfortunate
sufferers was ended. At that time 199 bodies had
been recovered, and after a very careful search
through the workings of the middle seam, no more
could be found. Notwithstanding that the venti-
lation of the further workings is still very incomplete,
two or three daring men penetrated to the " staple"
which communicates with the lower seam, where
they found that the water had risen in the lower
workings to the height of 18 feet. It will therefore
be impossible for some time to get at those whose
retreat may have been cut off in the lower seam.
The body of the overman Amour, who would take
the command of the party below, and in whose
courage and experience and fertility of resource
great confidence was felt, was one of the earliest
brought, and in a memorandum-book in his pocket
was found the following touching, but consolatory

record :
Friday afternoon, half-past 2.—Edward Arm-
strong, Thomas Gledson, John Hardie, Thomas
Bell, and others, took extremely ill. We had also
a prayer meeting at a quarter to 2, when Tibbs, H.
Sharpe, J. Campbell, H. Gibson, and William
Palmer. (The sentence is incomplete.) Tibbs ex-
horted to us again and Sharpe also."
From this, which is all the intelligence that is
likely to come to us from below of the dreadful
scene, we learn not only the resigned frame of mind
in which the poor fellows met their fate, but also
that the gas had begun to take effect on them at an
earlier period than was supposed. Amour's watch
was stopped at 10 o'clock, and as he was one of
the most powerful men of the party, it is permitted
us to hope that the majority, if not all, were
stretched in their last sleep by Friday night. All
the bodies were buried yesterday in the presence of
an immense concourse of people, who flocked in
from all parts of the district. Their graves were
dug hastily in a small plot of ground sloping down
to Earlsdon churchyard, and to this spot yesterday
afternoon a long string of country carts, each with
its freight of two or three coffins, might have been
seen making its way along the narrow roads. There
was scarcely a house in any of the three villages in
which the men were lodged which had not contri-
buted to this ghastly procession. From some two,
three, and four coffins were brought out ; arid as I
passed by the open door of one cottage I saw in the
middle of the floor a pyramid of seven. In this case
the poor woman had lost her husband and six sons-
During the day various ministers of religion de-
livered suitable addresses from the pit heap, and
both there and at the burial ground the people as-
sembled behaved with the greatest decorum. The
following letter from the Queen was read by the
clergyman of the parish :

" OSBORNE, JAN. 23.
" Sir,--The Queen, in the midst of her own over-
whelming grief, has taken the deepest interest in the
dreadful accident at Hartley, and up to the last had
hoped that at least a considerable number of the
poor people might have been recovered alive. The
appalling news since received has affected the Queen
very much.
" Her Majesty commands me to say that her ten-
derest sympathy is with the poor widows and
mothers, and that her own misery only makes her
feel the more for them.
" Her Majesty hopes that everything will be done
as far as possible to alleviate their distress, and her
Majesty will feel a sad satisfaction in assisting in
such measures.
" Pray let me know what is doing.
" I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient
humble servant, " C. B. PHIPPS.
" Charles Carr, Esq., Hartley Colliery."
Now that the excitement of recovering the dead
is over, and the last sad offices havebeen discharged,
the next question which arises is what were the
causes of the calamity, and who, if any, were the
persons responsible. From all I have heard there
is a much sterner determination to press for a pre-
, cise answer to these questions than has ever been
manifested on similar occasions before. The feeling
is not confined to the pitmen and others concerned
in colliery operations, but it is fully shared by the
general public here. The sickening suspense of
the last ten days has created an intense excitement
on the subject throughout the district, and I have
heard very strong expressions used to which per-
haps it would not be altogether right to give pub-
licity. At first it was proposed that the miners
should address the Queen, praying for a special
commission to inquire into the matter, but the
question is a very simple one, requiring little
scientific evidence for its solution, and such an ex-
traordinary interference with the jurisdiction of
the coroner seems totally unnecessary. For many
of the colliery accidents, particularly those in-
volving questions of ventilation, a coroner's jury
is, perhaps, as incompetent a tribunal as could be
found; but there is nothing in this particular acci-
dent with which any 12 men may not deal. I

was not here in time to attend the first inquest
on the five men who were killed in the cage while
ascending the shaft, but, from the reports I have
read of it in the public journals, I think there will
be a loud storm of disapprobation if the coming
inquiry is not much fuller and more searching.
The coroner seems to have brought a verdict of
accidental death ready cut and dried in his pocket,
to which the jury agreed with very little delay;
but there have been such decided warnings given
that so quick a despatch of the remaining part of
the inquiry would not be tolerated, that it would
be a sad mistake to neglect them. The facts, how-
ever, lie in so narrow a compass that there is no
necessity for a protracted inquest ; all that is re-
quired is that none of the points should be slurred
over. As everybody knows by this time, the work-
ings of the Hartley Mine were reached by a single
shaft, the diameter of which was 12ft. For purposes
of ventilation this was divided into two equal parts
by a wooden partition, called in mining language a
brattice, which ran down it from top to bottom.
One side served as a downcast pit, by which the
air was carried down to the workings, and, having
been passed round them by the ordinary means,
rushed to the surface again by the other half of the
shaft, which thus become the upcast, For all pur-
poses of ventilation this arrangement appears to
have been perfectly adequate ; at least, I have beard
no complaints of the quantity of air furnished to
the men. It was not a fiery pit—that is, none of
the explosive gases were generated in it, and pro.
bably some 20,000 cubic feet of air per minute
would be all that was required. There were three
seams of coal in the colliery—the upper, 240 feet
from the surface; the middle or yard seam, 180
feet below that ; and the lower seam, 180 feet still
lower—making the whole depth of the shaft about
600 feet, or 100 fathoms. Unfortunately, it was
'the lower seam which was being worked at the
time. In the downcast were worked the cages for
the passage of the men and minerals, and in the
upcast worked the pumps, which were of great
force. The pit is what is called a very wet one—
that is, there is a large flow of water into it. The
pumps were capable of lifting 180 tons of water at
each stroke, and their average working was from
five to six strokes per minute. The mine is but a

short distance from the sea; in fact, from the pit's
mouth you may see the masts of a small brig lying
at anchor off the coast ; and as the water at the

bottom of the pit is perceptibly salt, it is probable
the sea is the principal feeder. The engine from
which the pumps derive their motive power is

placed close to the pits, and the great beam to which
their "spears" or rods were attached projected over

the upeast, and worked right over it at a consider..

able height. The water was brought up at two lifts,
first to the upper seam, about 240 feet from the
surface, and then to bank. There were, eonse-

quently, two sets of pumps and two spurs—one
passing from the outer endornose of the beam down

the upeast to the pumps fixed in the shaft, and the
other fixed to the hinder end of the beam, which
"staple" or narrow shaft worked up and down a

communicating with the upper seam, and again,
most unfortunately, with the upper seam only. Oa

the morning of Thursday, the 16th, the beam, with-
out warning, snapped in two, slightly in front of
its axis. It was just making an up-stroke at the
time, and the detached half fell, nose first, right
into the centre of the shaft. It struck first against
that part of the brattice which rises above the level
of the groUnd, without doing it much damage, re-
bounded against the side of the shaft, and then
went down, carrying with it all the bratticing and
most of the timber with which the sides of the
shaft were lined.
The cage which was ascending the shaft at the
time was carried away, and the ruins stuck fast
about six fathoms above the middle seam, thus
blocking all access to the men below. No satisfac-
tory cause has yet been assigned for the sudden
breaking of the beam. It is an immense casting,
weighing more than 40 tons. Looking at its massive
proportions, it is easy to see how little any one
could have expected such a failure. It is well pro-
portioned, and the metal seems of excellent quality.
The fracture has revealed a large hole in the casting,
some six inches long and four inches deep, which at
first sight appears to be a honeycomb, but which is
in fact a natural shrinkage in the prccess of cooling,
hardly to be avoided in castings of this size. All the
engineers who have inspected it agree that it did
not weaken the beam to any appreciable degree, and
in fact that the breakage is not to be accounted for
by an inherent defect in the beam itself. It has been
suggested that one of the nuts on the lower part of
the cylinder may have failed. Again, about a month
ago it as thought desirable to fix in new brasses for
the beam to work on. For this purpose it was lifted
bodily, by hydraulic power, three inches out of its
bearings. One of the hydraulics broke in the pro-
cess, and the beam came d own suddenly into the old
bearings with a jerk. This, it is conjectured, first
fractured the beam, though no marks of a crack ever"
seem to have been discovered. My own opinion—
and, of course, I only give it as the result of a com-
parison of a variety of statements—is that the first
cause of the accident was the breakage of one of the
spears or rods of the pumps—the spear which runs
down the upcast and is fastened to the outer end of
the beam. It may not be possible to bring it out in
evidence, but I believe it is most probable that some
stoppage took place in the action of the pumps. A
sudden tension was put upon the rod which it was
unable to bear, and it gave way. These rods are of
pine wood, about 6 inches in diameter, and on exa-
mining the part where the fracture took place the
fibres present the appearance of having been drawn
out, and not snapped across. This favours the
theory that the force was applied from below, and
the break was not caused by, and subsequent to, the
falling of the beam. The weight of the spears and
the column of water lifted by the beam was together
I believe about 40 tons. The sudden release of this
great strain destroyed the equilibrium between the
two ends of the beam, and the casting snapped im-
mediately at the axis like a rotten stick. This, I
believe, is the explanation favoured by the most ex-
perienced men who have examined into the matter
on the spot. The next point to be inquired into is,
why a passage was not made to the living tomb in
which the men were enclosed till after five days un-
remitting, and I may almost say unparalleled exer-
tions ? This is the most important point of all, for
another beam like this may not break again for the
next 50 years—in fact, such an accident has never
happened before—but in pits worked in a similar
manner the colliers may be shut up any day from
a dozen different causes. Public opinion at once
fixed upon the real cause of the terrible sacrifice of
life in the use of a single shaft only, and it is of
course evident that had there been a second shaft
the great majority of these unfortunate creatures
might have been brought safely to bank in a couple
of hours. None need have lost their lives but those
who were killed in the cage, and perhaps the few
whose retreat was cut off at the bottom of the shaft
by the fall, and whose bodies have not yet been
found. I shall have more to say on the single shaft
system, and will only now point out that the blame
which has been lavished so freely on the owners for
adopting it, and the inspector for tacitly acquiesc-
ing in it, is not altogether deserved. It is un-
doubtedly a barbarous system, and it is to be hoped
it will at once be prohibited. If such should be the
result of this accident, the friends of these poor fel-
lows will have the consolation that they did not die
in vain. But both owners and inspector found the
system in full operation, and, I am sorry to say,
from ail I hear; rather extending than falling into
decay, for I am told that at least half-a-dozen pits
not far from this have been recently opened and
worked with a single shaft. A man who takes ad••
vantage of a custom of the trade—bad though it be
—cannot be viewed in the same unfavourable light
as he who wilfully neglects all the precautions
which are taken by his neighbours. As for the
inspector, I expect everybody knew that he looked
upon two shafts as much safer than one—at least, if
he put them on a level, he differs from his brother
inspectors ; but if he had proposed, before this acci-
dent, to the Secretary of State to shut up all the pits
in his district with a single shaft, he would have
had a very unquiet time of it in the county of
Northumberland, and would very soon have been
obliged to retreat from his position. In justice to
Messrs. Carr, too, it ought to be mentioned that
borings were being made towards the workings of
the old Hartley pit, close by, which, when the
water had run off, would have effected a communi-
cation between the two mines, so that in a very short
time there would actually have been two sh efts in ope-
ration. But a much less excusable feature in the case
is the fact that, without the necessity of sinking a
second shaft, a communication might have been very
easily effected with the lower workings, which, for
purposes of ingress and egress, would have been just
as valuable, and would just as surely have saved all
the men's lives. As I have said, there are three
seams of coal in the mine. Between the lower and
middle, a distance of 30 fathoms, there is a commu-
nication by means of a staple, or elongated main-
hole, furnished with a ladder, and it was up this
that the men retreated to the middle seam from the
lower, where they were at work when the accident
happened. Between the upper seam and the sur-
face there is another staple, but there is no commu-
nication between the middle and the upper seam.
The distance is 30 fathoms, and I am told that it
might have been made at a very small expense;
£2OO probably would leave a margin. If it had
been there, all the men would have stepped to earth
in a quarter of an hour safe and sound, and instead
of the harrowing scenes of yesterday, the poor
widows would still have had their bread-winners
by their sides. It may be said that the profits o

the colliery could not afford the expense of making
a new shaft, but it is to be hoped that some expla-

nation will be given at the inquest why so cheap,
so obvious, and so efficient a substitute was not re-
commended and provided. Another point on which
very clear evidence ought to be required is the state
of the shaft. I am very much inclined to believe
that, even in the absence of a second means of exit,

had the sides of the shaft been securely walled in
the accident would never have assumed such fright

ful proportions, and the men might have been reached
in time to save their lives. The mere ruins of the
bratticing carried down by the beam might have
been cleared away in a very short time. It was the
immense mass of shale and sand brought away from
the sides of the shaft which rendered the work so
great. It appears that the shaft was walled in for a
short distance, and that below that the sides were
merely timbered up wherever it was necessary.
These timbers were of course struck down by the

beam in its passage in many plaees, the loose strata
behind gave way at once, and made the mischief ten
times greater. The shaft was so terribly shaken

hat from its original diameter of 12 feet lam told

that in one place it had opened out to the breadth
of not less than 30 feet. The falls went on during
all the progress of recovery, and the precautions
which it was necessary to take to protect the
sinkers consumed much valuable time. Every foot
they gained had to be secured by strong "cribbing"
behind them, and when ore looks to the dangers
and difficulties under which they worked, sus-
pended in slings, with no secure footing beneath,
the water pouring in from above, and the sides of
the shaft crumbling away around them, to say
nothing of the stifling gas which rose through the
ruins beneath in the latter days, the wonder is, not
that they were so long in effecting a
passage, but
that they accomplished so much in so short a time.