South Normanton Colliery Explosion – Alfreton – 1937

SOUTH NORMANTON, Alfreton, Derbyshire, 15th. February, 1937.

The mine belonged to the South Normanton Colliery Company and there was an explosion in the Waterloo Seam of the Winterbank Pit shortly after 9 p.m. on a Monday which claimed eight lives. There were three seams in the pit which employed about 460 men. The first was the Top Hard seam, the middle seam was not being worked and the bottom seam, the Waterloo, was at 180 yards deep. The coal face was about two miles from the pit shaft.

Mr. J.G. Mein had been the manager of the colliery since 1921 and he introduced safety lamps into the pit about 1934. They were put in as a precautionary measure when they encountered some faulty ground. Previously candles had been used but smoking was never allowed because of the danger of fire. Even so, tobacco smoke had been reported on the face about twelve months before the accident.

A number of men descended about 2 p.m. and these were the ones that caught the full force of the explosion. Shortly before 9 p.m. another 47 arrived near the coal face and started work. The majority of these men heard a rumble and a prop flew out and the roof began to sag. Then there was a flash and a great cloud of dust and the men ran for their lives.

W.E. Truswell, deputy, said that a  few minutes after 9 p.m. when he was about to leave there was a hurricane of wind with bits of coal and dust flying about and a choking dust so that he could not see anything. He went back about 50 yards and met a ganger who told him that the men were rushing to the turnout. After sending back two men who were hurt, he found P. Ansell sitting badly burned.

He went forwards again but the conditions were very bad due to the gas. He said to the men with him, “All of you clear put. Get to the turn out as soon as you can.”  Then there was another explosion. This was about 20 to 30 minutes after the first. Truswell said that he did not see flames and between 8 o’clock and the time of the explosion, no shots had been fired so he thought neither of the explosions was caused by shotfiring.

Adnitt had the duty of searching the men before they went down. He searched a few on them every other night and made a general search periodically but had never found anything. On this particular shift he did not make a search and had never seen anyone smoking in the pit.

When C.L. Dye, a contractor, went into the pit in charge of 11 men he noticed an unusual weight bump and ordered his men out at once. The weight increased rapidly in the roof as well as the floor. He shouted to the men nearest to switch off the power, and then came the wind which was enough to knock him down. He got up and ordered the men to fetch stretchers and tubs to get the injured men to safety. He said the second explosion was about ten times worse than the first. Thornley, one of the injured men, was coming out and he told Dye that he had never seen so many flames before. Dye and another man Waltho, went about 25 yards up the left bank with the idea of reaching the men there and made a brave and risky attempt to get the cutter men out.

The Mansfield Rescue Team arrived a little before 10 p.m. and a few minutes later they were joined by the Chesterfield Team. On Tuesday morning the Teams were relived by teams of employees working in relays.

Leslie Ottewell was one of the 47 men who had just arrived on the face and later went down in the rescue attempts. He told the Press:

Everything looked normal. You could not tell there was a thing out of place. I had the surprise of my life. We were just going to the bank to start work, having got undressed, when I heard a prop in the roof fly out and the roof started weighting. The whole place rocked. I shouted, “For God’s sake, men let’s get going.”  There was a cloud of dust came and we all ran as far as we could.

A crowd had gathered at the pithead and the reporter from the “Derbyshire Times” captured the scene in a paragraph “WAITING FOR NEWS”:

In a little brick building near the pithead, I found four men sitting before a roaring fire. They were L. Creswell, (brother-in-law to Vardy), T. Richards, (also brother-in-law to Vardy), William Smith (brother-in-law of Pride) and Frederick Pride snr., (Pride’s father). They were silent, these men, as they starred at the fire. They were thinking of their relatives who still laid buried in the pit, and whose bodies rescue parties were working hard to fond amidst the debris. They had volunteered to go down to help in the work but they had been refused permission, and all they could do was wait.

The men who died were:

• Edwin Samuel Hill aged 19 years, of 25, Albert Street, single,
• John Marriott aged 38 years, of Spion Kop Cottages, married,
• Willis Lambert aged 45 years, of 68, Church Street, married,
• Henry Willis aged 59 years, Oakleigh Villa, Sutton-in-Ashfield, married,
• Everett Rees aged 54 years of 134, Main Street, Hulthwaite, married,
• John Vardy aged 25 years, of 1, South Street, single and
• Frederick Pride aged 30 years, of West End, Sutton-in-Ashfield, married.
• Those severely burned and take to Mansfield General Hospital were:
• Isaac W. Petts aged 69 of 8, North Street, married,
• John Samuel Thornley aged 27 years of 37, Albert Street, married,
• Percy Ansell of 45, South Street, single.

John Johnson aged 30 years, of 31, Sherwood Street, Sutton-in-Ashfield was severely burned when he put up his arms to protect his face from the blast, it gave him what was known as crocodile arms.

While in Hospital, Thornley told his story:

The coal cutter was at work at the face just after 9 o’clock, three-quarters of an hour before the shift was due to finish. I then heard a sudden rumble over the coal face. It did not seem to be very distant, in fact, it was quite near. As soon as the weight had got settled there was a flash and I saw nothing but fire and smoke and swirling clouds of dust. We were flung in all directions and did not know which way to turn. We did not at first realise what had happened. I could not see any of my pals because of the thickness of the air. I put my arms up to try and gasp for breath, and my face felt just as it had been skinned. I struggled along towards the gate end but I had not got very far when there came another explosion, this time not so terrific but the air seemed to reverse and there were more clouds of swirling dust. After that, I remember nothing more until they put me in a tub to take me to the bottom of the shaft.

The inquest into the disaster was held at Alfreton before Dr. R.A. McCrea Coroner for the Scarsdale District. W.E. Truswell, deputy in charge of the district in which the explosion occurred, said that he had made careful examinations for gas but had found none. He gave his account of the conditions underground and the Coroner asked him if he thought that heavy fall would account for what he thought was a second explosion. The witness said it could be but he thought it was an explosion. He stated that he had not found gas in the district for over twelve months and them only a small amount. The men on the face had flame lamps and electric lamps and he had never seen men in the pit with cigarettes or matches.

Mr. J. Cowan, Electrical Inspector of Mines, told the court that he was perfectly satisfied that the coal cutter could not have been the cause of the explosion but he could not speak regarding the portion of the trailing cable that was buried.

Police Constable Tansley said that he found cigarettes and matches on the bodies of some of the men. In Marriott’s pocket were two cigarettes in a metal case, and eight live matches. In Willis’s a tin tied round with tape containing three cigarettes, but no matches. In Pride’s, a tin containing one cigarette and nine live matches, with four loose matches in his pockets and Vardy had a tin containing one cigarette, six live and one spent match. Nothing had been found on the other bodies. All the cigarettes were whole and none had been lit.

Mr. Mein, the manager, issued warrants to certain men and had every reason to believe that the searches were carried out satisfactorily but the evidence of the Constable indicated that the searches were not as effective as he thought. The manager explained the fall by saying that the floor had given way. He explained that there were three seams underneath, two of them being worked by other companies and he had no previous knowledge of these workings. He thought that breaks in the floor caused by the working of these seams had allowed the gas to come in but the two seams that were worked were not in the exact spot where the fall occurred.

Mr. T.E. Pickering, Inspector of Mines, said that he had known the Colliery for seven years and with regard to ventilation and gas, he regarded it as a perfectly safe pit. The roadways were in a good condition and were in good condition.

On the day of the explosion, he reached the mine about 11 p.m. and was taken as far as the loader end on the No.11’s stall and, with the manager, he investigated the left bank. He found a certain amount of timber run out and could not get past the coal cutter because of a fall. He was with the party that recovered three bodies. He thought the point of the explosion was near the coal cutter and that there was a second explosion in the neighbourhood of the first which was very violent. The cause of the second was thought to be gas coming from the floor ignited by some flame or other.

Mr. Pickering said that they came across Willis’s body about 8 yards from the coal face and under his cap, who was about a yard away from the body, they found three parts of a cigarette. They found two electric lamps near the coal cutter and one flame lamp near the loader gate. All the lamps were tested and found to be in good order.

He suggested that the explosion was caused by someone smoking or striking a match to smoke in the left bank. When men stroke matches on the surface they throw the dead match down, but in this case, if a match had been struck which he did not want to be found, it was usually replaced in a tin. There was some unusual weighting above and below the seam which they were working and the Bentink seams of coal were being worked under the South Normanton Waterloo seam. He said:

It would have been advisable and a very wise thing to do for colliery companies working in close proximity and underneath each other to consult their respective plans but there is nothing of an obligatory character in the Act of Parliament making such mutual inspection of the plans if necessary. Such a point was now under consideration by a Royal Commission.

After the verdict had been delivered the Coroner commended the bravery of two men Guy and Waltho for their bravery and Mr. W.H. Mein, the managing director of the colliery company, expressed the company’s appreciation of the gallant efforts made by the workmen, rescue brigades, doctors and nurses.

REFERENCES
Colliery Guardian, 12th March 1937, p.510, 19th March, p.550.

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