MONKWEARMOUTH  Monkwearmouth, Durham. 7th. September, 1862.

The shaft was twelve feet in diameter and four sinkers and a mason were working in the shaft on a cradle, walling part of the upcast shaft. Ten fathoms of the shaft were partly timbered but this was rotting. Water had previously broken through the tubbing at 40 fathoms from the surface. The cradle was eleven feet eight inches in diameter which was hung from six, half-inch, iron chains, seventeen feet long, and slung to a rope that had a diameter of nine or ten inches. The chains should have taken a load of fifty-one tons but two of them broke when the scaffold gave way and the cradle tipped and sent the men to their deaths down the shaft.

The scaffold was constructed by laying a main, oak bunton on the three-inch plank brattice and let in the freestone rock for eighteen inches. On top of the bunton were four cross buntons, twelve inches square and let into the rock. On top of this, there was a covering ten inches thick which was covered with fourteen inches of fireclay to make the whole mass airtight. It was filled with five fathoms of stone and ashes to save the sides of the shaft from shrinking. The weight was calculated to be 224 tons and could bear upwards of 500 tons.

The cause of the scaffold giving way was discovered to be an unseen slip that gave way under the weight and when the scaffold fell, the sudden change in atmospheric pressure caused the chains to break and hurl the men down the shaft. The pressure was so great when the scaffold fell that some men, who were near the shaft, were drawn in. Joseph Lamb, one of the sinkers, left the cradle a short time before and went to the pit bank for materials. He said:

My foot was in the tub to go down when the wind was so strong that I had to hold by the staple so save myself there was a chock to steady the cradle which forced it over the working side.

A cradle was lowered by Anthony Wardle, master sinker with William Adams on it. Adams was the first man to go down the Hartley shaft after the disaster at the colliery there and was now employed at the Monkweirmouth Colliery.

The men who died were:

  • David Mason aged 30 years, married with four children.
  • Charles Wright, aged 37 years, married with seven children.
  • Robert Lamb aged 21 years who had been married three weeks.
  • James Hall aged 44 years, married with four children.
  • Robert Dryden aged 35 years, married with three children.

 

REFERENCES
The Colliery Guardian, 13th September 1862. p.213.
The Mines Inspectors Report, 1862. Mr. Mathis Dunn.

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

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