SEGHILL. Seghill, Northumberland. 9th. September, 1864.

The colliery was owned by Joseph Laycock who had bought the colliery about six years before from Carr Brothers who owned the Burrowdon and Hartley Collieries. The colliery was on the Blyth-Tyne Railway and had been sunk about 35 years before the disaster.

The Pit had employed 500 men and boys but there had been a strike and employed 400 at the time of the disaster. There were two shafts, the John Pit, which was the winding shaft from the Yard Seam and the upcast, and the Engine Pit which was a few yards away and was the pumping shaft and drew coal from the Low Main Seam.

Jonathan Cambell, a master shifter of Seghill, who had worked almost thirty-eight years at the colliery, examined the pit at seven of the evening of the explosion and found nothing wrong. Cambell was in the pit when the explosion took place at a place called the “Old Flat”. Two hewers and a boy were working there and the hewers, Heaps and Whitehouse were killed. They were working with lamps but naked lights were allowed in parts of the pit. The boy, William Taylor also had a lamp. The lamps were locked by the deputies and William Thompson locked these lamps and he had worked for 38 years in the colliery. The ventilation before the explains was thought to be all right but there was a caution board placed about the lights. The pit was subject to blowers and smoking was not allowed in the pit.

John Greenwell was the deputy in the Yard seam at the pit and went into the workings after the disaster. He found the body of William Taylor, a putter, in the Moor House Way with a separated lamp a few yards from the body.

Those who died were:

  • William Taylor, putter,
  • Heaps, hewer,
  • Whitehouse, hewer,
  • George Jackson,
  • I. Mills,
  • Robinson.
  • The injured were
  • Barnabas Mulen, a boy.
  • Thomas Dodds, a hewer.
  • William Rutherford, hewer.
  • Thomas Hogg.
  • Thomas Wedderburn.
  • Francis Purvis, putter.
  • John Stevenson, a boy driver.
  • John Armstrong, shifter.
  • John Richardson, shifter.
  • Robert Wood, shifter.
  • Henry Mills, shifter.

The inquest was held at the Hope and Anchor public house at Seghill before Mr. Cockcroft, the Deputy Coroner. The room was crowded and among those present were Mathias Dunn, Inspector of Mines, Joseph Laycock, the owner of the colliery, Mr. Forster, consulting engineer to the coal trade, The Reverends Skeen and J. Brown, Dr Davison, Dr. Pyle of Earsdon, Mr. T. Hurst, mining engineer and Messrs. Catron, Nicholson and Maddison, colliery viewers.

Robert Barras the master wasteman at the colliery for 20 years and had worked at the colliery for 35 years and gave evidence at the inquest that he had never seen gas in the goaf but safety lamps were used there and there was now no powder used in the mine and the ventilation was normal.

Several witnesses who had been involved in the rescue operations to recover the bodies told the court that they had found lamps that were opened. William Lumsden, the fore-overman in the Main seam said:

I went down the pit after the explosion and found two bodies in the Moor House way but I did not know them. We had to come back because we met a lot of chokedamp. We went further in later and found two lamps, one of which was unlocked. It was Robinson’s lamp. He had a key because he was superintending some men. Another lamp was found unlocked. I think some gas must have come from a fall in the goaf. There must have been a naked light which caused the explosion. There was a jacket found with one of the bodies and there was tobacco in the pockets. We have not found any pipes.

Mr. Dunn said:

I cannot say where the explosion originated neither can I account for it all. Robinson’s lamp was found open. The brick stoppings were blown about 600 yards. There might have been some stowing about the stoppings. It would be about one o’clock when I got to the cross-cut way. It would be about eight o’clock on Thursday morning when I got to the Californian way.

The jury retired and after a short time the foreman delivered the following verdict:

We find that George Jackson and the others have been killed by an explosion of gas in the low seam of Seghill Colliery and that such explosion was caused by gas coming into contact with the injured lamp, and that they had been accidentally killed.

Mathias Dunn commented:

In concluding this report, I beg respectfully to remark, as to my general practice in visiting various mine in the district, since the commencement of the Inspection Act in 1850, I have invariably and carefully scrutinized the plans and noted detailed answers to enquires upon them, recording them in permanent books, so that from these records I obtain a general knowledge of the effects of each arrangement, and also of the quantities of air, it nature and velocity, as well as the principles and practice at the different collieries (as explained in my weekly summaries), so that when visiting a mine or inquiring if there is anything requiring an underground inspection, and neither masters or men request advice or opinion, underground inspection is to a certain degree unnecessary.

 

REFERENCES
Mines Inspectors Report, 1864. Mr. Mathias Dunn.
The Colliery Guardian, 10th September 1864. p.212.

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

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