The Sun.
London, England, 1862-02-05 00:00:00

THE 11A.R2'LEY COLLIERY ACCIDENT

NEWCASTLE.ON-TYNE, MONDAY NIGHT.
The inquest on the bodies of the 199 men and
boys who were buried alive in the Hartley Pit at
the late accident, and whose bodies were recovered
on Saturday week, commenced this day at Seaton-
Delevel, a village close by the colliery. The coroner
and jury were assisted in the inquiry by Mr. K.
Blackwell, the Commissioner specially sent down
by the Home-office for the purpose, and by Mr.
Dunn, the Mining Inspector of the district. No
new facts of any importance were added to those
already laid before the public by today's inquiry.
The first witnesses examined were the banksmen
who were at the mouth of the pit at the time, and
who described the sudden fracture of the beam, and
the disappearance of the outer half down the shaft.
Their evidence threw no light on the cause of the
accident. The next witness was Thomas Watson,
cne of the eight men who were ascending in the
cage at the time. Five of them were killed, bat he
and two others :were rescued almost by a miracle.
He gave the following narrative of his escape. "It
was about half-past 10 when I and seven others got
into the cage to ascend the shaft. We had got about
half-way up when we heard a sudden crack in the
shaft, and a moment after there came down a tre-
mendous crash of falling timber, which struck the
cage. Before we were struck something passed by
us down the shaft like a flash of lightning. The
crack we heard seemed close by us in the shaft; it
did not come from overhead. It might have been
one of the ' spears' (pump rods) breaking, but I
should not like to say. We were all thrown out of
the cage by the shock. Four of us were killed on
the spot. When we came to consider we concluded
that the spears were broken, as the engine had
stopped ; and we thought that the shaft had closed
up over as. One of the men in the upper deck of
the cage had some matches in his pocket, and
we struck a light. The first thing I did
was to examine the state of the rapper ropes
(by which the signals are given from the bottom
to the top), and I found them all right. I wrapped
a leather belt round them with the intention of
climbing by them to bank, but one of the
men with me made such a stir about his boy
who had been carried away down by the falling
timbers that I slid down the pumps to look after
him. I found him lying among a mass of timber.
I remained with him until I was rescued. I was
the last man taken up. They let down a common
loop from the top for me, and I 'went up in that.
I could not see in what state the shaft was, for it
was all filled with smoke, and the wind very soon
put :the candle out." Ralph Robinson, the next
witness, who was also ascending in the cage, gave
a similar account of the accident. About half-way
up there was a sudden crack somewhere in the
shaft ; how far off it might be he could not tell,
and then they heard something falling down the
shaft all the way from bank. A shower of timber
followed, which crushed the cage, and struck all the
the men out. He remained in the ruins until nearly
nine at night.
John Short, the enginewright in charge of the
engines, described the immediate means taken after
the accident to rescue the men who were in the
cage below. They found the shaft stopped up by
ruins of the brattice timber, about 30 fathoms from
bank, before arriving at the high main. There was
great difficulty in passing a rope through this to
the men below. When they were got up the tim-
ber in the upper part of the shaft was cleared away,
and steps then taken to clear away the timber be-
low. By working incessantly during the night
they cleared away the impediments to within
about five fathoms of the middle seam, and
it was then that they began to meet with falls from
the side of the shaft. Up to that time they had
only the timber "to deal with. The brattice was
all gone in that part of the shaft, and the pump-
trees had all been carried away. The sides of the
shaft had given way slightly in the upper part of
the shaft, but when they got within five fathoms
they began to give way to a very considerable extent,
and there were falls all right along. The sides of the
shaft were generally lined with 11-in. boards, se-
cured by roun d cribs 61in. thick. He could not say how
much of the shaft was walled or how much of it was
unlined altogther. He had only been at the pit for
a twelvemonth, and there had been no occasion to
repair any part of the shaft in his time. They found
the main pump rod broken off at from 10 to 12
fathoms from the surface. The pump-trees which
were originally fixed on the north side of the shaft
were twisted across to the south side by the fall of
the beam.

Mr. William Coulson, of Durham, the master-
sinker to whom the work of clearing the shaft was
intrusted, was the next witness called. He said
that being at Newcastle on the day after by chance,
he heard of the accident, and stopped at Hartley on
his way further north to see how matters were get-
ting on. Finding the state of things so serious he
offered his services, which were accepted. He de-
scended the pit about 5 o'clock, and found the shaft
in a very shattered:state. All the timber was swept
away, both of the main brattice and the side lining,
except here and there where there was a timber
hanging loose from the side. About five fathoms
above the yard seam all the rubbish had stuck fast
in the shaft. He set to work clearing away the
timber—stowing it in the upper seam, instead of
taking it to bank, to save time. This went on until
Saturday night, when the stone from the side of
the shaft began to fall in very extensively. Many
tons fell in, and it was very dangerous for the men.
This was about four fathoms from the middle seam.
Very little had fallen above the level of the high
main coal, but at the point where the men were
working the shaft opened out to 30 feet wide in
some places. It was necessary to fence the shaft
up at this place, which took them twelve hours.
This brought them to Sunday morning. The
timbers of the brattier were jammed fast in toge-
ther, and there was also a great quantity of large
pieces of stone, but very little small rubbish.
What there was fell through to the bottom as
the large timbers were drawn out. On Sunday
morning they began to work at a small opening by
the side of the shaft, which they continued to work
at until Tuesday morning, when, after getting out
a large balk of timber, there was a sudden rise of
gas, and some of the men had to be carried to bank
speechless. They were working with candles at
the time, which, if anything, burned more brightly
in the gas than before. It rose gradually in the
shaft, beating the air back, and a canvas brattice
was then put in to carry it off. This took till
Thursday morning. At this time, in addition to
the danger from the gas, the shaft was also in a
most unsafe state from tha continual falls which
were taking place. When the gas came up from
below he gave up all hopes of the men being saved,
and shortly
furnace-drift, one of the pitmen passed through and
found that
all after,the when a hole was made to the
men were dead. His opinion
was that the lodgment of the ruins of the brattice
took place just about the yard seams on the timber
stays, or " buntings," on which the pumps rested.
If it had not been for the enormous falls which took ,

place, they certainly would have got through the
rubbish two days before they did; and the stones
then brought away, by filling up the interstices of
the mass of timber ruins, kept back the gas. _

In reply to a number of questions Mr. Blackwell
put to him as to the state of the shaft, Mr. Coulson
said he could hardly tell whether these falls would
have taken place had the shaft been securely lined
with brick. The walling in the upper part of the
shaft was much cut by the fall of the beam, but no
rubbish was brought away from it. No part of the
shaft was walled except the upper part. All the
rest was lined with timber. Re himself had sunk
the shaft 17 years ago, but he could not say whether
the lining had been repaired or not since. The ex-
planation of the cause of the accident given
by Mr. Coulson, who has had 48 years' ex-
perience of shaft•sinking, and who has sunk
84 pits in his time, corresponds very much with
the opinion expressed in my former letter. He
found that the main " spears" or pump-rods were
broken about 12 or 14 fathoms from bank, and the
second spear opposite the middle seam, and their
breakage was the cause of the accident. When
they parted, the beam lost its weight as it was
making its upward stroke, and broke in the middle.
The appearance of the spears at the points where
they broke were as if they had been pulled out, not
snapped. They were broken by tension not by a
blow, and it could not have been the falling beam
which broke them. The buckets of the pumps might
have got wedged, or a clack might have fallen, but
in all probability it was the wedging of the buckets.
That would account for the breakage of the pumps
in such a manner, and it would take place just at
the turn of the stroke. The beam was broken by
concussion, not by any tensile strain. The cross-
head (connecting it with the piston-rod), which was
of malleable iron, broke at the same time. If the
beam had broken at the down-stroke it would have
been caught by the catch-pins, and would not have
gone down ; but, being broken in the up-stroke
(6, going into the house" is the technical term,) it
had all the length of its stroke to fall, and the
spears, from which it could not free itself, having
doubled over, it fell right down into the shaft.
The next witness called was

William Adams, one .of the two volunteers who
first penetrated through the debris and discovered
the dead bodies. The first two they found were
lying dead on the furnace bars, and a little further
on there was a dead body lying in a doorway, keep-
ing it open. Just beyond that were at least
100 bodies close together. Most of them were lying
on their sides, as if they were asleep. There was
no water in the seam. Some of the men had
corn in their pockets, and in one or two of their
boxes, when they were brought up, there were
candles and tobacco. The air in the workings at
tliat time did not affeit him at all; it seemed
quite good, and the candles burnt well in it.
Mr. Humble, the resident viewer of the colliery,
gave a similar account of the discovery of the bodies.
On Tuesday morning he forced his way through the
hole which had been made in the rubbish into the
furnace drift. Descending by that, he found two
men lying on ashes of the furnace, on their faces.
There were also several men lying and sitting be-
hind it. In the furnace drift were other men lying
and sitting against the walls. Passing through the
doors at the end of this drift, in the passage leading
to the shaft he found a large number of men lying
together, as if they had laid down to sleep. From
thence he passed along the gallery leading to the
staple, and there he found the rest of them lying in
heaps together. The air was bad all the way, but
on getting within a short distance of the staple he
could no longer breathe, and was obliged to return.
The candle he had with him burnt brightly all the
time. There was a bad smell, which he believed
came from the dead bodies of the men and horses.
He had no reason to believe that there were any
bodies left behind in the pit. The air at the top of
the staple was very bad—so that the men would get
no relief by going there. The air in the pit was
generally good, and there was no trouble with the
gas. His explanation of the bad air which killed
the men was, that the smoke from the furnace would
pass down the shaft and back through the lower
main, up the staple, into the middle seam, where the
men were ; and so the air would be vitiated. The
furnace would probably keep alight for half an hour
or 40 minutes after the accident.
Mr. Blackwell put several questions to the
witness as to the state of the shaft, but, not
being responsible for it, he said he could not
speak as to the condition in which it was at the
time, nor had he ever examined it particularly to
see whether it required repairs. Whenever, in his
passage up and down the shaft, he found a plank
deficient, he reported it and had it repaired.
After Mr. Humble's evidence the inquiry was
adjourned until to-morrow.