APEDALE. Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire. 27th. March, 1878.

The colliery was owned by Messrs. Stainer of Apedale and the explosion which claimed the lives of twenty-three men and boys took place at the No.1 Burley Pit. There were two shafts at the colliery and the ventilation was by a furnace. The book which recorded the quantity of ventilation passing through the mine was destroyed in the explosion. A fan was being contemplated to ventilate the mine and it arrived at the colliery the day after the explosion.

The shaft was 484 yards deep and several seams were worked at the colliery, the Bullhurst, the Eight Foot, the Seven Foot and the Ten Foot. The seams were distinct and worked separately with lamps used in all the seams. The manager of the pit was Mr. James Henry Price and William Scott was the assistant manager of the Apedale Collieries but did not manage the Burley Pit.  Mr. Price had been at the pit for two and a half years and was partly responsible for laying out the pit. Before he was the manager, he had been assistant to the previous manager, Mr. Bostock. Mr. Price visited the pit two or three times a week and his last visit to the Eight Foot Seam had been on the 20th March when he found everything satisfactory.

The head butty tried the lamps in the morning and the fireman, John Whalley, went down the pit at 5.30 a.m. every morning to inspect the pit. This he did on the morning of the disaster and found no gas at all. Neither did the fireman in the Eight Foot Seam. During the day both firemen made inspections and found no traces of gas. The firemen had to be present when shots were fired and three shots were fired in the Seven Foot Seam, that morning.

John Whalley who was the fireman in the Seven Foot Seam of the Burley Pit was at work at the time of the explosion which took place at about twenty minutes to two in the south level. He felt the effects and then he heard it. There were several men working with him and they all went at once to the pit bottom.

A short time before the disaster, John Shenton, the head butty in the Burley Pit, was talking to Caleb Whalley and he heard no complaints of gas in the mine. He had worked in the mines since he was a boy and knew fiery seams. In his opinion, there were none better managed than the Burley Pit. It was his duty to examine all the lamps before they were taken into the pit. He saw the lamps and they were all in good order,. No one in the mine was allowed a lamp key except the fireman and all the lamps were locked on the morning of the explosion. He was knocked unconscious by the explosion but he took part in the rescue operations and remained down the pit all the afternoon. They found timbers blown down on the South Side and there was a fire which, when discovered, caused the men to be withdrawn from the mine

Mr. Gilroy, Inspector of Mines, went to the colliery when he received a telegram telling him of the disaster and on his arrival, went down the pit where he found that there was a fire in the south side workings and the upcast shaft. There was still firedamp in the pit and it was sure that there was no hope of the men being alive. He considered that it was useless to run the risk of further lives by sending men down the shaft and a consultation took place where he advised that the mine be flooded to extinguish the fire. The managers replied that there was not enough water to do that so the next best thing was done and that was to plug the bottom of the upcast shaft with rubbish and try to starve the fir of air. About noon the following day when Mr. Gilroy had been at the colliery all night, it was considered that the connection between the shafts had been closed when a second explosion took place. Steam pumps and other appliances were put in pace and the flooding of the mine carried out.

The men who died from Apedale were:

  • Caleb Whalley aged 29 years, and
  • Frederick Whalley aged 13 years.

Those from Silverdale were:

  • Edward Smith aged 16 years.
  • William Bostock aged 15 years.
  • Joseph Braddock aged 28 years.
  • William Baggalley aged 14 years.
  • James Higginson aged 35 years.
  • Thomas Dale aged 26 years.
  • Henry Yarwood aged 17 years.
  • John Sanders aged 26 years.
  • John Edwards aged 28 years.
  • John Stockton aged 15 years.
  • William Baggalley aged 25 years.
  • Albert Handy aged 15 years.
  • Henry Piper aged 28 years of Halmerend.
  • Abraham Riley aged 43 years of Boon Hill.
  • John Taylor aged 16 years of Newcastle.
  • Joseph Baggalley aged 35 years of Newcastle.
  • James Mayer aged 60 years of Chesterton.
  • Thomas Hughes aged 28 years of Chesterton.
  • Richard Fowler aged 60 years of Chesterton.
  • James Cork aged 21 years of Wood Lane.

There was great distress in the district due to the time it took to recover the bodies and the Colliery Company provided for the widows and orphans of the disaster along with an allowance from The Hartley Fund.

The inquest into the explosion was held at the George and Dragon Hotel, Chesterton before Mr. Booth the coroner. Mr Maule QC watched the proceedings on behalf of the Treasury, Mr Wynne and Mr. Gilroy, both Government Inspectors. Mr. Strick represented Messrs Stainer and Company and Mr. W. Brown, the Miners’ Agent were present.

Mr. James Cope Cadman produced plans of the colliery and workings to the court and the evidence was taken from the witnesses. John Whalley, who was the fireman in the Seven Foot Seam, was down the pit at the time of the explosion and went to the surface. He went down the pit again half an hour after the accident but he did not go into the workings. Whalley thought the Burley pit was the best he had worked in his twenty years experience in the mines.

Henry Viggers gave evidence to the inquiry. He had worked in the Burley Pit before the accident but was now working as a railway porter. The workings were free from gas and there was plenty of air. He had been a collier all his life and when he heard of the disaster he thought it a mistake as the mine was one of the safest he had known. John Dale was the next witness. He had been a fireman in the Burley Pit up to a month before the explosions and he agreed with John Vigger’s view of the state of the colliery.

The manager of the colliery, James Henry Price, produced the Report books of the colliery for examination and he said that he thought that it might be possible for the furnace flames to get high enough to ignite the return air.

Frederick Cook, the lampman, said he gave out 94 lamps on the morning of the disaster and all were locked and in good condition but there was no record kept to which seam the lamps went. Thomas Moore, another lampman, said 69 lamps were returned to him and all were locked and in good condition. There were 12 lamps missing 11 of which were recovered from the Eight Foot Seam and were damaged, probably as a result of the explosion. The colliers always left their matches and pipes with him before they went down the pit and slips of paper were used to show which lamp every man had and these could not be changed without the fact being known.

William Scott, the assistant manager of the Apedale Collieries, said he was one of the first to go down the pit after the explosion. They found a small fire on the south side which was extinguished. When he was questioned by Mr. Wynne as to the cause of the disaster he said:

I examined the workings and went down the air dip where there were traces of fire. I found places where the coal had been on fire and the inference I drew was that the air was fired at the furnace and trailed up.

The acting manager for Messrs. Stainer at the Silverdale Colliery, James Lucas, stated that he had been down the pit with Mr. Stainer and from the charred condition of certain places he thought that the explosion had occurred where a shot had been fired 40 yards up the dip, on a level with the furnace. he found the seam very dusty and commented “the dust would catch fire before the gas”. He was uncertain as to the exact cause of the explosion, the gas could have fired at the furnace or by the shot but the shot had done its work. Mr. Strick, the manager of the Silverdale Colliery had made several inspections of the mine with the Government Inspectors, Messrs. Wynne and Gilroy and he thought the explosion started at the furnace.

The Inspectors Mr. Gilroy and Mr Wynne made examinations of the mine on 7th June and again on the 12th July and Mr. Gilroy thought the explosion could have originated from one of three causes. First, the shot in the furnace dip, second the return air over the ventilating furnace and third at a defective lamp.

Mr. Wynne said:

It appears a few days previous a “thirling” was made out of the straight rise heading into the workings above, so that any gas that was given off in the higher workings had then a straight run to the furnace, instead of having, as before, to travel some distance round and have to mix with the other returns before reaching the furnace. It appears that door was put near this “cut-through” and at the very time of the explosion some further alteration was being made to the at the spot, and although these changes would no doubt improve the ventilation in the upper workings, it was a grave mistake to make a material change to the return air courses until the fan was erected and the furnace abandoned, as a slight increase in the quantity of gasses either from a small blower or from the fault would necessarily float directly onto the fire and cause an explosion. From the position in which the coal getters clothes and tools were found, there can be little doubt that a shot had been fired in the return air course, and the general opinion at first was that the gas had fired at that shot but however reprehensible it was to fire a shot in such a place, all appearances were against the theory, for the whole force of the explosion took the direction from the pit and not towards it and past the place where the shot was fired. when this colliery was laid out it escaped the notice of the manager that the rise workings would be 170 yards higher than the bottom of the shaft and consequently would require a strong pull in the upcast shaft but the experience has taught him that lesson, a very powerful Guibal Fan was ordered, and the foundations actually commenced before this calamity happened.

The Coroner asked the jury to retire to consider the verdict and they returned the following verdict:

The men lost their lives through an explosion of gas but how and where it accumulated or where it was exploded, we have no positive evidence to show. We find also that there does not appear to be any blame to be attached to the management of the pit.

Following the Inspector’s Report, an inquiry under the 32nd Section of the Coal Mines Regulation Act as to: “whether James Henry Price was a fit and proper person to hold a certificate of competency under the said Act” was held before William Spooner, Esq., County Court Judge and Thomas Evans as assessor.

The inquiry is instituted under the 32nd section of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1872 upon the following circumstances namely:

  1. That you, the said James Henry Price, are a person holding a certificate under the above-mentioned Act, and that under such certificate as manager you had the daily supervision of the Burley Colliery, situate in the Parish of Wolstanton, in the County of Stafford, the owners of the said colliery being Messrs. Stanier and Company.
  2. That on the 27th day of March last you, the said James Henry Price, as such manager as aforesaid, did not cause an adequate amount of ventilation to be constantly produced in the mine of the said colliery to dilute and render harmless noxious gasses to such an extent that the working places of the shafts, levels, stables and workings of such mine, and the travelling roads to and from such working places should be in a fit state of working, and passing therein contrary to the 1st. General Rile set forth in the 51st section of the said Act.
  3. That you the said James Henry Price, did permit the return air to be used for the ventilation of the said colliery to pass up a dumb drift and over the furnace of the upcast shaft of the said colliery. The outlet of such a dumb drift into the upcast shaft being near the fire issuing from the said furnace that there was at all times a danger of an explosion happening, if from any cause whatever, the return air used for ventilating the said colliery should become so charged with gas as to be explosive.
  4. That you, the said James Henry Price, did on the 26th day of the said month of March last having such daily supervision of the said colliery permit a thirling or air passage to be cut through the north dips of the said colliery into a brow called the furnace dip by means of which the air of the north dips had its course shortened by a considerable distance, and was taken more directly up such dumb drift as aforesaid to the upcast shaft. The effect thereof being to increase the opportunity for the gas which is carried away in the current of the ventilation of becoming so thoroughly diluted by mixing with the air as it could do when its passage with the air was during a longer time throughout the greater distance.
  5. That in consequence of such neglect and mismanagement of the said colliery by you, the said James Henry Price, an explosion occurred at the said colliery on the said 27th day of March last whereby 23 of the workmen at the said colliery were killed namely, Caleb Whalley, Frederick Whalley, Edward Smith, William Bostock, Joseph Braddock, William Baggalley, James Higginson, Thomas Dale, Henry Yarwood, John Sanders, John Edwards, John Stockton, William Baggalley, Albert Handy, Henry Piper, Abraham Riley, John Taylor, Joseph Baggalley, James Mayer, Thomas Hughes, Richard Fowler, James Cork, and the lives of the other workmen at the said colliery were seriously endangered.

Dated this 10th day of September, 1878.

When it was proved that Price was only the assistant manager to a previous manager, Mr. Bostock, who was responsible for layout out the workings of the mine there was considered no evidence to withdraw Price’s certificate.

 

REFERENCES
Mines Inspectors Report 1878.
Colliery Guardian 16th August 1878, p.262.

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

 

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