Elba Colliery Explosion – Gowerton – 1905

ELBA. Gowerton, Glamorganshire. 21st. January, 1905.

The colliery was the property of Messrs. Baldwins, Limited who owned several other collieries in the Swansea district. It was a small colliery on the southern outcrop of a seam which was locally known as the Three feet Seam which together with the Six Feet and Five Feet which were above and the Two Feet below had been worked in the neighbourhood for many years. The coal was bituminous and was used in the Company’s steelworks. The seams lay a considerable angle and were worked by the means of slants. The slant where the explosion took place was stated a few years before on the Three Feet Seam which was worked until 1903. Since then, the workings had been confined to the Six Feet Seam which was won by continuing the slant at a lesser dip than the gradient of the dip of the strata until the seam was reached. The slant was then driven into the Six Feet Seam and working developed on each side. The workings were levels at intervals of 40 to 50 yards out of which topholes were driven at intervals of 18 to 20 yards to the full rise which was about 18 inches to the yard.

In working the Three Feet Seam, naked lights were used but since the Six feet had been opened only safety lamps were in use. The lamps were bonneted Clanny type usually termed Cambrian bonneted safety lamps and were locked by means of a screw. Mr. Robson, the Inspector for the District, thought that this system of locking lamps was unsatisfactory and lent itself to tampering with lamps.

Explosives were not used in the colliery except in drifting through hard ground or cutting through faults. There was no blasting on the day of the disaster. The roof and floor were soft and there was great difficulty to get any height in the roads, so the height off the tophole, which was four feet at the face when newly cut, was soon reduced to half that height. On the levels, sufficient height for the trams to pass, was maintained by removing some roof or floor but, as the trams were not taken to the topholes, these were allowed to remain narrow and closed up when finished. This meant that sometimes before a tophole had been driven 50 or 60 yards, a slice, called a “skip” had to be cut from one side of an adjoining pillar of coal to permit a passage of the coal from the tophole. The coal slid down these “skips” or was drawn by lads calls “coal shifters”. These were the conditions in an inclined seam which produced firedamp and added to the difficulty of providing adequate ventilation where it was most wanted, at the faces of the narrow working places which were working to the full rise.

A Waddle fan at the mouth of the upcast slant produced the ventilation and the last measurement before the explosion was given as 17,566 cubic feet per minute by Herbert Griffiths, the certificated manager. The main slant, which was the intake airway, was 700 yards long and dipped at about 18 inches to the yards. The inspector thought the distribution of the ventilation satisfactory as the current a taken to the lowest point on the main slant and there it was split with an equal portion going to each side, the No.7 East and West. From the workings in these levels, the air passed upwards into the No.6 East and No.6 West, ventilated the workings and the topholes to the rise of them before the two slits joined and passed up the return slant to the fan. The ventilation of all the places on the inbye side of the last “holed” topholes was effected by means of canvas pipes, 18 inches in diameter and fully extended by rings that were fitted at intervals. This was a common method in steep workings and in others where, with a bad roof, where it was difficult to erect brattice. When the distance is great for the air to be carried in this way, it was necessary to erect close-fitting doors or sheets on the outer ends of the pipes and this restricted the flow of air.

The working places in a colliery like this one were limited and there was an inducement to work the double-shift system which was the practice in this colliery. The day shift started at 7 a.m. and finished at 4 p.m. and the night shift started at 9.30 p.m. and finished at 6.30 p.m. A repairing shift started at 2 p.m. and finished at 9.30 p.m. and this overlapped with the coal-getting day shift by two hours. On pay-days, which were alternate Fridays, the day shift followed the day shift without any interval. Between 47 and 50 men were employed on each of the coal getting shifts.

Four or five hours before the explosion, the No.7 West level, which was 68 yards long and included Nos. 4, 5 and 6 topholes depended on “piped” air. To get the pipes reduced, it was decided on the previous shift to push on with the No.4 tophole. This was the outer unholed tophole and it was decided to get it holed. William Henry Jones, the day fireman, took it upon himself to stop the No.5 tophole. He crossed it off and throttled the air pipe which was there to ventilate it. At the inquest, he said he did this too, “send more air to the No.4 tophole.” This resulted in No.5 quickly filling with gas which was found by the night fireman, John Davies, within four feet of the level when he made his examination just before the night shift commenced.

It had been arranged between the two firemen, that as soon as No.4 was holed, a wooden door was to be fixed just inside No.4, which would take the place of a canvas sheet then outside the No.3 tophole. On Friday 20th January, which was a pay-day, the night shift of about 48 persons went down the pit at 5 p.m. During the first hours of the shift, Davies kept the men out of the No.6 tophole and the level and directed the efforts to get No.4 held. This work was completed about 7 p.m. After that, he told two roadmen, John Long, who was killed in the disaster, and Thomas Bevan to do the work which was completed about midnight. While the door was being erected, the men worked in the No.6 tophole and the level and there was traffic from these places as well as the No.4 tophole.

When the door was finished, Davies told the two men to cut off the pipes outside the door. He pulled down the brattice sheet outside the no.3 and then left the place to go to the No.7 East. The shift had almost finished when the explosion took place. The exact time was not known but it was between 12.30 and 1 a.m. on Saturday. Within half an hour, when he was returning, he felt a rush of air and arrived at the entrance of No.7 West and found the air still full of smoke. He entered the level and found several dead and dying men and with men from the No.7 East, did everything possible to rescue the men.

With the exception of three men known to be in the No.3 tophole, all the others were speedily recovered. A large fall had occurred in this tophole and the last three bodies were not recovered until the following Wednesday. They had been buried by the fall which had been brought down by the shock of the explosion. All three were badly burned. The eight others who had died and four out of the five injured were found in or near the No.7 West, one of the injured in the No.6 West at the top of the No.3 tophole where he was building a stopping to check the air from returning by the shortest route.

Six of the victims were killed on the spot and five others who got out alive died later of their injuries within a few days. Of the remaining 36 or 37 in the mine, five were seriously injured or burned but these recovered. At least 31 in the mine when the blast occurred escaped injury and four of them came from the extreme end of the No.7 West, to which the explosion was confined.

Those who lost their lives were:

• William Davies aged 60 years, collier,
• David Davies aged 26 years, collier,
• Edward Rees aged 26 years, collier,
• Thomas Pratt aged 18 years, coal shifter,
• George Rees aged 32 years, trammer,
• W.H. Morgan aged 20 years, trammer,
• George Williams aged 14 years, door boy,
• Alexander Ogilvie aged 20 years, trammer,
• William Bowen aged 18 years, coal shifter,
• David J. Rees aged 21 years, trammer,
• John Long aged 49 years, repairer.

The inquest took place on the 10th February and the 4th March. Mr. Robson came to the conclusion that the explosion occurred on or near the level of No.7 West, inside a door which had been fixed in this level during the shift. In the Inspector’s opinion, the primary cause of the explosion was defective ventilation. Firedamp had been reported by the firemen on six occasions in the previous three weeks and it was clear that the amount of air going to the No.7 West on the day before the explosion and the places inside the No.3 tophole filled with gas.

A grave error of judgement was made in allowing men to work in the No.7 West except the work that was absolutely necessary to improve the ventilation and the Inspector thought that there should have been no coal getting in No.6 West as the two ventilation systems were linked.

There was no direct evidence as to how the gas was ignited but it was not thought it fired at a lamp as they were recovered and found to be in perfect order but pipe tobacco, some matches and two implements for opening lamps were found belonging to the dead and injured. There was indiscipline in the mine and it was thought that the ignition was caused by exposure to a naked light.

REFERENCES
The Mines Inspectors Report 1905.  Mr. Robson.
Colliery Guardian, 27th January 1905, p.162, 17th February, p.299, 31st March, p.538.
”And they worked us to death” Vol.2. Ben Fieldhouse and Jackie Dunn. Gwent Family History Society.

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