GREENLAND WALLS. Berwick-on-Tweed, Northumberland. 8th. April, 1857.

The new colliery was near Duddo, about ten miles south of Berwick. Five men were killed when the water broke into the pit from old workings. the colliery was owned by Mrs. Johnson and Messrs. Carr and had two workable seams, one at ten fathoms which was three feet thick and one at eighteen fathoms deeper which was two and a half feet thick. It was the latter that was being worked at the time of the disaster. The workings in both seams were described by Mathias Dunn at the time as “very ancient” and there were no plans of the old neighbouring pits, only traces of them and the knowledge of the old colliers which was taken into account when the pit was sunk.

The new pit had a bratticed shaft, nine feet in diameter with an engine on both sides that pumped water and raised coal. The upper coal seam was found to have been worked and was drained by the coal in the lower seam appeared not to have been touched. When the drifts were started, water, tinged with red, came from the coal which was a warning that it was from an old waste. When the drifts reached sixty yards, the men urged the overman, Thomas Ray, to start boring in the headings. This request was passed on to the resident viewer, Mr. Bayles and although he had been in the workings the day before the disaster, he decided that boring was not required.

The work went on and the south drift suddenly holed into a drowned waste. The seam was thin and the workings narrow and it was soon filled with water killing all the people in the pit. Three men were at the surface and had to wait for the banksman, who was having his dinner before they could go down.

The men who died were:

  • Thomas Patterson,
  • John Robson,
  • Andrew Oliver,
  • Two young men named Hogarth.

All the men with one exception were married and several left families.

The jury of twenty men at the inquest concluded that the accident was due to Bayles and his superiors placing the pit so close to old workings and disregarding the request of the men to bore. A verdict of “Accidental Death”  was returned. The disaster left four widows and ten children fatherless.

 

REFERENCES
Mines Inspectors Report, 1857. Mr. Mathias Dunn.
Berwick Journal.

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

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