Naval Colliery Explosion – Penycraig – 1880

NAVAL COLLIERY, Penycraig, Glamorganshire. 10th. December 1880.

The colliery had two shafts the No.1 four hundred and forty-three yards deep and fifteen and a half feet in diameter was in the parish of Llantrissant. The No.2, downcast shaft was four hundred and thirteen yards deep and fourteen feet in diameter and was sunk to the Six Foot seam which was seventeen feet thick in the parish of Ystrad-y-fodwy. The two shafts were one thousand two hundred feet apart. Up to May 1879, both shafts had been worked as bratticed shafts and the number of men restricted to twenty descending by each shaft. At the time of the explosion, a connection had been made between the two shafts in the middle of May 1879 and two hundred and twenty-eight men were employed during the day and one hundred and six at night. The colliery raised five hundred tons of coal in twenty-four hours by a system of longwall working. Locked lamps were used but shot firing was allowed by qualified men under sub-section 1 of No.8 General Rules. Ventilation of the colliery was by a fan at the top of the upcast shaft and before the explosion 70,000 cubic feet of air per minute were passing through the mine. This had been increased from 39,000 cubic feet per minute in September 1880. The increase in the ventilation was due to the size and number of the passages being increased.

The ventilation of the mine was deranged by someone leaving a door open at the mouth of the upcast shaft where some repairs to the cage were going on and the fan stopped drawing air from the downcast shaft through the workings. This allowed gas to collect and it was fired by a naked light or a shot.

The explosion occurred at 1.30 am, when one hundred and seven men and boys were at work below ground and claimed one hundred and one lives.

The rescuers found falls, rubbish and gas barring their way and their passage was difficult and dangerous but four men were found alive at the bottom of the downcast shaft. John Morgan was taken out of the pit alive on Saturday morning having been without food for fifty hours. He was

found wedged into a crevice with the body of a dead comrade next to him. He had been given up as dead and the Insurance Company was ready to pay out £30. His son and daughter had come from Bristol to console their mother.

Those who lost their lives were:

• John Jenkins, aged 54 years who died from his injuries.
• Joseph Jones, aged 30 years who died from injuries.
• Richard Lewis, aged 24 years who died from his injuries.
• Griffith George, aged 24 years who was burnt and suffocated.
• Morgan Morgan, aged 28 years who was burnt and suffocated.
• John Morgan, aged 33 years who was burnt and injured.
• Thomas Jones, aged 21 years who died from burns and suffocation.
• Rees John, aged 19 years who was suffocated.
• John Rees, aged 34 years who was suffocated.
• Griffith Williams, aged 22 years who was suffocated.
• William Grice, aged 23 years who was suffocated.
• Noah Rodgers, aged 39 years who was suffocated.
• John Lloyd, aged 40 years who died from injuries.
• Howell Evans, aged 45 years who was suffocated.
• James Jenkins, aged 40 years who died from injuries.
• Phillip Samuel, aged 18 years who suffocated.
• Sydney Welding, aged 15 years who suffocated.
• John Davies, aged 25 years who suffocated.
• Evan David, aged 32 years who died from suffocation.
• Henry Brooks, aged 28 years who ws injured and burnt.
• William Davies, aged 26 years who suffocated.
• Samuel Samuel, aged 14 years who suffocated.
• David Lloyd, aged 70 years who suffocated.
• Thomas Jones, aged 36 years who suffocated.
• Evan Jones, aged 45 years who suffocated.
• Thomas Herbert Jones, aged 25 years who suffocated.
• James Chadwick aged 25 years, suffocated.
• John Davies, aged 25 years, suffocated.
• William Robling, aged 40 years suffocated.
• John Evans, aged 35 years, suffocated.
• Thomas Jones, aged 31 years, suffocated.
• Morgan Thomas, aged 25 years, who died from his injuries.
• William Howell, aged 21 years who was burnt.
• David Evans, aged 23 years who was burnt.
• Joseph Morgan, aged 25 years, suffocated.
• David Lodovick, aged 45 years, suffocated.
• William T. David, aged 21 years, suffocated.
• John Willis McCarthy, aged 32 years who died from injuries.
• Evan Rees, aged 27 years suffocated.
• David Rosser, aged 20 years, suffocated.
• Thomas Reed, aged 29 years, suffocated.
• Evan Griffith, aged 22 years, suffocated.
• James Francis, aged 50 years, who died from injuries.
• William Lewis, aged 56 years, burnt.
• Thomas Edwards, aged 59 years, suffocated.
• William Parlour, aged 29 years who died from injuries.
• William Pearce, aged 37 years died from injuries.
• Alfred Fry, aged 30 years died from injuries.
• William Fry, aged 27 years died from injuries.
• William Lewis, aged 49 years, suffocated.
• Edward Hughes, aged 42 years, burnt.
• David Lewis, aged 43 years died from injuries.
• James Williams, aged 38 years, suffocated.
• Thomas Morries, aged 36 years, died from injuries.
• James Murphey, aged 50 years, burnt.
• William Evans, aged 38 years, suffocated.
• Benjamin Howells, aged 52 years, suffocated.
• David Watkins, aged 44 years, suffocated.
• William Morgan, aged 56 years, burnt.
• Thomas Morgan, aged 17 years, burnt.
• James Lewis, aged 15 years, suffocated.
• Evan Radcliffe, aged 30 years, suffocated.
• William Maskman, aged 26 years, burnt.
• Joseph Morris, aged 32 years, suffocated.
• Evan Williams, aged 35 years, burnt.
• John Jenkins, aged 42 years, suffocated.
• John Thomas, aged 18 years, suffocated.
• J.R. Williams, aged 23 years, suffocated.
• John Hughes, aged 29 years, suffocated.
• George Samuel, aged 30 years, suffocated.
• Archibald Cooke, aged 27 years, suffocated.
• Evan Davies, aged 15 years, suffocated.
• John Snook, aged 52 years, suffocated.
• Thomas Thomas, aged 31 years, suffocated.
• D.D. Williams, aged 36 years, died from injuries and burns.
• James Morgan, aged 75 years, suffocated.
• David Thomas, aged 33 years died from injuries.
• James Gibbon, aged 20 years burnt.
• Zephaniah Gibbon, aged 36 years, suffocated.
• Robert Roberts, aged 16 years, suffocated.
• Richard Williams, aged 49 years, suffocated.
• Samuel Lewis, aged 14 years, suffocated.
• Edward Lewis, aged 42 years, suffocated.
• W.R. David, aged 23 years, suffocated.
• Evan Phillips, aged 19 years died from injuries.
• Henry Jones, aged 32 years, burnt.
• Ely Raps, aged 29 years, burnt.
• David Evans, aged 26 years, burnt.
• Henry Isaac, aged 32 years, burnt.
• Thomas Isaac, aged 28 years, burnt.
• John Davies, aged 42 years, burnt.
• Thomas Williams, aged 40 years, burnt.
• Evan David, aged 49 years, burnt.
• Charles David, aged 24 years, suffocated.
• Thomas Simon, aged 23 years, burnt.
• Edward Job Morgan, aged 66 years, suffocated.
• David Williams, aged 59 years, suffocated.
• David Roberts, aged 31 years, suffocated.
• Thomas Grice, aged 21 years, suffocated.
• John Stone, aged 48 years, burnt.

Subscription for the relief was opened and the Lord Mayor offered to collect subscriptions. The inquiry was held at the Butcher’s Arms Hotel Penygraig on Tuesday. The two coroners Mr. G. Overton and Mr. E.B. Reece sat jointly. Mr. Wright, a barrister, represented the Home Office. Mr. Henry Hall, H.M. Inspector for North Wales and Mr. Wales, the Inspector for South Wales were present and Mr. Sommons solicitor, represented the Company and Mr. W. Abram the Miners’ Agent, the men.

The engineer Mr. Moses Rowland Rowlands at the colliery who also acted as manager was cross-examined and he said he had not got a managers certificate but had worked in the mines first from coal getting and then as a clerk at the colliery and with his father for who he served as assistant manager. He had been manager and sole director of the colliery for two years with his father below him. He thought that the explosion had originated in Turbevilles headings and he believed that the shot had been fired in the seam without permission because they had found safety fuses there after the explosion.

Matches had been found in the clothes of one of the dead, the body of William Davies a general labourer. Thomas Jones’ lamp had been found unlocked and he probably had sent to the lamp station to be relighted. The manager allowed his father to go through the mine almost every day as though he were the manager and he left one section of the pit to his father even though he was neither manager or undermanager and the witness pointed out that he was acting as his associate and not doing his duty under the Act of Parliament in allowing persons to perform the duties of management for him.

The report book for the first half of 1879 was missing and the manager could not account for this.

No union men were employed at the colliery and it was the only colliery in the Rhondda where there had been no strike for the last twenty years.

The day overman Charles Moses could not write and he could only put his cross in the report book and the Coroner remarked that the Act stated that the overman should be a literate man.

The jury retired and returned with the following verdict:

We the undersigned have unanimously come to the conclusion that the great catastrophe that took place at or near Turbevilles heading and was caused by a fall in the immediate locality thereby releasing a quantity of gas confined there above which became mixed with the necessary quantity of atmospheric air to make an explosion caused a great velocity in this mixture and coming into contact with a lamp became ignited blowing the flame through the gauze and we decided that it was accidental.

We strongly condemn the manager Mr. Moses Rowlands for not complying with the Special Rules as follows:- not recording the ventilation as per Rule 29, second, the loose manner of not recording the giving out of lamps and keys. Rule No.24, third, not producing thermometer readings and the barometer readings in No.26 General Rule, and we believe he was guilty of an error of judgment in erecting a lamp station in the return airway.

Information supplied by Ray Lawrence and used here with his permission.