Black Hall Colliery Fire – West Bromwich – 1871

BLACKLANE. West Bromwich, Staffordshire. 23rd. November, 1871.

The colliery was the property of Messrs. Houghton and Son and was near West Bromwich. On the evening before the disaster, seven men and one boy went down the pit to work throughout the night. When the day men arrived at the colliery at 7 a.m. the following morning they found they could not get down the pit as it was filled with smoke. The horse keeper went to tell the manager Mr. Lawler and Mr. Baker, the Inspector arrived at the colliery. A fire and the coal was found burning fiercely at the bottom of the shaft and it was decided to seal the workings.

When the pit was reopened, Mr. Lawler, Mr. Henry Johnson, a mining engineer from Dudley and three workmen went down. They found the fire was out but the smell from three decomposing horses was overpowering and they removed their bodies. The shaft had to be recovered as the weather was not favourable. When the pit was re-entered the bodies of the men were found as if they had been overcome when they were asleep. A water bottle was found to be full of beer.

Those who died were:

• John Joseph Roberts, aged 31 years, night deputy, married with three children.
• Daniel Tate aged 25 years, widower with two children.
• Daniel Daniel, a widower with three children.
• Daniel Plant, horse fettler aged 59 years, married with six children.
• Thomas Hogetts, pikeman aged 49 years, a widower with six children.
• Henry Corbett, aged 53 years, widower with eleven children.
• Joseph Kane, pikeman aged 46 years, a widower with six children.
• Thomas Hands a boy aged 13 years.

Daniel Plant was found lying on his belly with his hands under his face and a cap on the back of his head. Josephus Roberts, who was s in charge of the men, was found lying on his belly with his right hand resting on his waistcoat and his face on a wooden slab. Daniel Tate was lying on his back with his waistcoat over him and another man was resting his head on a block of wood with an empty tobacco pipe near him. The disaster left six widows and thirty-four children fatherless.

The inquest took place at the Clayton Arms in Swan Village before Mr. Hooper, Deputy Coroner. Edward Ashton, who had been a pikeman at the colliery for two years, told the court that he was working in the pit the bay before the fire and had come home about 6.15 p.m. when there were no signs of a fire. The horse fettler, James, was the last to come out of the pit and he had seen no fire.

Mr. Baker asked the jury if they thought the accident could have happened if the men had been away. Thomas Hands, father of one of the deceased, was called and he said that there had been afire at the colliery in April, 1871, which had been dug out and filled with sand and Brazil stone. He thought the fire had started at a trap door a few yards from the stables where the smoke would be carried away from the men and when they knew of the fire it was too late. The road would have been burnt cutting off their escape. He also thought that the fire started by the actions of one of the victims.

After hearing the evidence and the Coroner’s summing up, the jury came to the following conclusion after a brief consultation:

We are of the unanimous opinion that the fire started in the horse stables and the lives of the men and boys were sacrificed by their own carelessness and negligence in sleeping in the pit but we are aware especially of the negligent deputies who were left in charge of the pit.

 After an inspection of the pit by half of the jury, Mr. Lawler is exonerated from blame. We consider great credit is due to the mining engineers who rendered such valuable assistance in attempting to rescue the bodies and prevent the closure of the pit. Messrs. Baker, R. Mason, Thomas Williams, J. Williams, J. Gething and others.

REFERENCES
Colliery Guardian, 1st December, p.564, 15th December, p.614, 22nd December, p.641., 27th December, p.667, 2nd February 1872, p.112.

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