Neilsland Colliery Inrush – Lanarkshire – 1916

NEILSLAND. Lanarkshire, 26th. April, 1916.

The colliery was the property of Messrs. John Watson, Limited and five men were killed by an interruption of water and liquid matter.

It was intended to work part of the Ell Coal Seam left when the workings of the Eddlewood Colliery was abandoned to the Neilsland shafts. The Ell coal had been reached in the vicinity of the No.3 Eddlewood shaft by mines and a blind pit. Boreholes were kept in advance but on the 26th. April the refuse with which the Eddlewood shaft had been filled which was sludge from a coal washer and was in a liquid state, burst into the Ell coal workings and blocked all the roads in the immediate area.

Four of the men who were killed were in the Ell Coal and the fifth was near the top of a brae in the Main Coal. The four men had no chance of escape and the fifth was overwhelmed by the flowing mud and carried to the foot of the brae.

It is possible that the debris from a coal washer might, with an absolutely dry shaft, and an outlet for water at the bottom, to drain away the water carried by the debris, be a safe medium with which to fill a shaft even if the shaft were the be holed near the bottom sometime later but such conditions are very rare it would seem that if the shaft was intended to be holed into, the shaft should first be emptied of the debris by working from the surface. It is probable in this case that the barring of the old shaft had collapsed and that the inrush was due to the failure of the roof above the Ell Coal seam

REFERENCES
The Mines Inspectors Report. Mr. H. Walker.

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