The Sun.
London, England, 1849-01-27 00:00:00

FATAL COLLIERY EXPLOSION

NEAR BARNSLEY.

EIGHTY-THREE LIVES LOST.
(From the Wakefield Journal.)
It is scarce two years since our readers were startled
by an appalling colliery accident which took place at the
Oaks' Colliery, near Barnsley, in which 73 human
beings met with an untimely death. Great as was that
loss of human life it becomes our duty to record an event
of a similar character, which, in its fatal results, by far
exceeds that at the above works.
The intelligence reached us on Wednesday evening of
another fatal accident in the immediate neighbourhood
of that which took place at the Oaks' Colliery in March,
1847, and en making the necessary inquiries we were
informed that some fifty poor miners had met with in-
stant death by an explosion in a coal-pit near to
Barnsley.
On arriving at Barnsley on Thursday morning the con
rectness of the rumour received fearful confirmation, and
the gloom a hich such an event was calculated to cr, ate
in the locality was too clearly depicted in the sorrowing
aspects of bereaved wives, mothers. and children, who
were wending their way towards the scene of
wholesale devastation, which lies about two miles on
the Sheffield side of Barnsley. After proceeding about
a mile on the road towards the Parley Main Col-
liery (where the fatal accident occurred), we were met
by rude but literal funeral processions following each
other in rapid succession from the pit at Parley, sur-
rounded by frantic widows and childless parents,
ss ho had succeeded, not without some difficulty, in
recognising their own kindred from among the heaps
of fearfully mangled bodies from time to time sent
up from the pit's mouth. The scene was at once savage
and solemn, and on arriving at the works we fbund a
further crowd of spectators anxiously waiting to know
the fate of missing husbands, sons, and brothers, and
ever and anon the shrieks of the females indicated that
some fresh sufferer's fate had been made manifest by the
recognition of the body by its friends.
From infbrmation gleaned on the spot we learn that
the Parley Main Colliery is about 1,111 yards in length,
has been regularly worked fix the last ten or eleven
years, formerly by Mr. Jarratt, but latterly by Messrs.
Jarratt and Jeffcock, the former of whom resides at
Doncaster and the latter at Sheffield.
According to one report we heard on the spot the pit
had not been worked for some three weeks past until
Wednesday, but from another statement (which we
think the more correct) we are informed that the pit had
been regularly worked up to the hour of the accident,
and was only a fortnight since surveyed by Mr. Locke,
of Snapethorpo Colliery, Wakefield, a surveyor, and re-
ported by him in a fit and proper state for work.
On Wednesday morning several hands went down
into the pit to their employ at about four o'clock, and
were followed by the major part of the workmen at six.
All seemed to go on the same as ordinary until twenty
minutes to twelve at noon, when a violent ex-
plosion ensued, the report from which was
distinctly heard by those parties who were on the
surface. The alarm immediately spread and in
about fifty minutes the atmosphere became suffici-
ently purified to admit of some parties venturing down
the pit's mouth in a skiff, when only a faint idea was en-
tertained of the amount of lives which had been sacrificed.
The mouth of the pit was surrounded by several parties,
some insensible, others quite dead, and a few who still
survived were fearfully burned, and only survived a few
hours. The number of sufferers who were rescued from
the scene of destruction up to ten o'clock on Wednesday
was twenty, but, in consequence of the difficulty in as-
certaining the number of hands in the pit at the time of
the accident, all was doubt and uncertainty until Thurs-
day morning, when vigilant measures were taken for re-•
pairing the different parts of the pit which had been
blown down, and for this purpose a number of masons
were at once employed to brick up the different broken
compartments, within which numbers of poor fellows
were securely embedded among the mutilated mass of
earth-work.
This having been partially effected, a number of
men proceeded down the shaft, and commenced car-
rying the bodies to the mouth of the pit, from whence
they were sent up to the surface at intervals, where a
crowd of persons awaited their being landed in a
state of breathless anxiety. The majority of the
sufferers were fearfully mutilated, so much so that
it was totally impossible for many of the relatives
to recognise the mangled corpses, unless by some
peculiarity in the deceased's dress. Nearly all the
bodies last brought out were fearfully mutilated, and
in several instances the head literally scalped, the
hair burnt off, and the viscera obtruding from the
lower portion of the body. A more horrible scene
conld not possibly be conceived, and as cart-loads
one after another were taken away to sur-
rounding houses numbers of maddened and anxious
parents and wives ran after the vehicles and threw
on one side the blankets, in the dreadful anticipation of
recognising some one dear to them. This scene of
horrid suspense continued throughout the early part of
the day, and at three o'clock there only remained three
bodies undiscovered, and these were expected to be found
on further masonry being thrown up in the back portion,
or what is technically called the " dip," or lower end of
the pit.
From the dreadful manner in which the sufferers in
this part of the mine were disfigured, and the uniform
destruction of all hands there employed, the supposition
is that the fire damp explosion originated in that d
ection.