The Heys Colliery Explosion – Ashton-under-Lyne – 1857

THE HEYS. Ashton-under-Lyne, Cheshire. 31st. July, 1857.

The colliery was the property of John Kenworthy and Brother and the explosion, which killed forty men and boys occurred at a time when there was no suspicion of any danger. It was in a seam called the New Mine which was the deepest and the most fiery at the colliery. It dipped at 1 in 2 and the distance from the top of the pit to the end of the workings was about one mile.

The workings in the seam were in two places, one about 280 yards from the top of the engine brow called the “stumpings” where the coal was worked in the return air by pillar and stall and the other in the levels at the bottom of the engine brow and the up brows which went out of these levels. This was worked by narrow work. It was at the far end of these latter workings that the explosion left the coal charred and the general direction of the blast seemed to come from the end and through the workings.

On the morning of the explosion, everything seemed to be going well and at dinner time the engine at the pit brow was stopped and the doors of two underground boiler fires were opened. They were left open until the end of the dinner time at 1.25 p.m. when the engineman saw flames coming from the top of the underground engine house. It appeared that the flames had started in the flues leading from the boiler. Immediately after the flames spread and there was a violent explosion.

The engineman saw this and was got out of the pit alive but later died from his burns. Of the remaining thirty-nine in the pit who were on the brow, all lost their lives. It was known that the taker-of at the top of the brow had gone down to see if the rails were clear and he was one of the victims.

The mine was worked with safety lamps but some of these were unlocked but it was only on the engine brow, the lamp station on the level and near the boiler fires that open lamps were used. All these places were in the intake airway. From the evidence of the badly burned engineman, it appeared that the gas was ignited at the boilers and fired back into the workings. Mr. Dickinson had doubts about the evidence of this man ad he may not have recollected whether he first saw the fire or felt the explosion. An open lamp was found at the top of the brow after the explosion, contrary to the rules of the colliery, and the Inspector thought that this could have been the source of ignition of the gas.

As to the source of the gas, there was no direct evidence. The men who worked on the night shift found the ventilation good and saw no cause of the explosion except a sudden increase of gas in the mine, probably from an outburst or by some derangement of the ventilation. Mr. Dickinson postulated that the gas could have come from old workings near the top of the engine brow. If this had been the case then it would have had to pass the taker-off a the end of the brow who had an open light. When the Inspector made his examination of a small fault near the main fault that had been cut through he said: “there was an audible and rapid issue of firedamp at the place,” and he thought that the ventilating air in the colliery was not sufficient to dilute this gas.

Some months before there had been a fire in the airway and flue between the boiler fires and the upcast shaft and as a result of the damage that was done by this fire, a new flue in the airway was being constructed. This new flue was connected to the downcast shafts to the upcast shaft and had ventilation doors in it and any leakage through this door would weaken the ventilation.

A new level was being made from the engine brow to the stumpings from the main intake to the return. This level contained a door and had not been holed through before the explosion but after the disaster the level was holed through between the intake and the return and the air door had been blown to pieces by the blast. There was no one at work in the place and it was impossible for the inquest to determine if it had been holed through before or after the explosion.

The mine was known to give off very pure firedamp which did not always shoe in a lamp but, in accordance with the most modern methods of the time, the coal was got by driving out levels and the coal was the worked back towards the shaft but pillar and stall work was going on in the stumpings in the return air and it was entered from the intake along which trams and persons were continually passing to and fro.

The Inspector was critical that the firemen at the colliery also worked as colliers and recommended that the furnaces should be fed with fresh air. He also said that the mine should be light by locked safety lamps.

REFERENCES
Mines Inspectors Report, 1857. Mr. Joseph Dickenson.

Information supplied by Ian Winstanley and the Coal Mining History Resource Centre.