Great Fenton Colliery Explosion – Great Fenton – 1885

GREAT FENTON. Great Fenton, Staffordshire. 8th. April, 1885.

The colliery was owned by the Stafford Coal and Iron Company and William Robson was the certificated manager. The colliery was ventilated by a Waddel fan, 45 feet in diameter which delivered 120,000 cubic feet of air per minute to the mine and about 8,000 cubic feet per minute of this went to the Knowles seam which was one of several which were worked at the colliery. It was nearly 9 feet thick and very strong with no well defined cleat. The Knowles coal workings had two levels and went about 200 yards from the shafts. They were 9 feet wide except for the first part of the upper level which was 12 feet wide. The top coal was left as the roof and they were 6 to 8 feet high. The upper level which was the return opened straight into the upcast shaft. The explosion occurred in the Knowles seam at about 7 a.m. on the 8th April.

William Dale, the underlooker at the Homer Pit, went down about 6 a.m. on Wednesday and went through the Knowles Seam. He did not make an examination but went straight through to the level. He saw the fireman, John Bithel in the seam and left him there. Dale went to the jig crut on the south side of the Rag mine when he felt the explosion as a “suck”. He went to the top of the jig where he met two men and guided them into the fresh air. There were no casualties in the Rag mine and all the men who were working there got out safely.

The manager was in the colliery office when he heard it and he immediately went down the Sutherland pit to see if all was right. He found it so and then he went down the Homer pit and found that in the Rag mine, he had to open doors to clear the smoke. He found Dale in the Knowles seam and with others they managed to get to the far end. The first thing they saw was the bodies of Edward and William Forrester in the bottom level. The manager asked William if a shot had been fired and he replied that there was not one fired there but there had been one fired in the other level. The manager had them brought out. he went on with David Bannister, the overman at the Sutherland Pit, who after the explosion, went into the workings of the Homer pit with a party. They went through the Rag mine and into the Knowles seam and recovered the body of Beech from the bottom of the jig crut. They then found the body of Daniels in the top level.

A party lead by Mr. Greatbatch, the colliery engineer found an accumulation of gas at the place where a shot had been fired at the top end of the level. The shot had partly blown out and partly done its work and it was in the place where the Riley brothers were working. Both were killed. The fireman Bithel had charge of firing the shot and it looked as though the shot hole had been bored too far. The powder for the shots was taken into the mine in canisters and two or three shots a day would be fired. The canister that Bithel had contained two charges, each weighing about three-quarters of a pound. The canister would hold five cartridges but there was no way of knowing how many Bithel took down on the morning of the disaster.

Those who lost their lives were:

• Samuel Daniels aged 17 years, wagoner. He was very badly burned,
• James Beech, a boy who worked as a taker-off. He had a burnt arm and leg and a broken jaw,
• William Hammonds, a boy who worked as a hooker-on and was very mutilated,
• Edward Forrester, collier, J. Bithall, fireman, who was very badly burnt and died 15th. April,
• Joe Riley, collier who died from burns 9th. April,
• Rob Riley, collier who died from burns 9th. April and
• Tom Forrester, collier who died 18th April from burns.

The injured:

• Will Forrester, loader aged 17 years,
• Henry Hammond, puller-out,
• James Nash, wagoner who hurt his arm,
• John Hooks, jigger who was badly bruised and
• George Cooper, jigger who was also badly bruised.

The inquest into the men’s deaths was held at the Railway Hotel Fenton by Mr. John Booth the Coroner for North Staffordshire. All interested parties were represented. The first witness was Mr. Robson the manager who gave his description of the mine and the work that went on after the explosion.

Henry Hammond, a collier of Longton, was down the Homer pit at the time of the disaster. He went down about 5.50 a.m. with other men some of whom went into the Rag mine and others to the coal seam and saw Bithel at the lamp station. Bithel inspected his lamp but did not say anything to him. Hammond went to the bottom of the Knowles mine to push some waggons. His brother, who was killed, was the hooker-on. He did not remember much about the explosion but was got out by a man named Henry Rogers, bruised and a little burnt. William Forrester was working with the two Forresters who were killed but none of them, tried the place for gas. He heard the shot being fired and saw smoke coming through the bottom driving that Thomas Forrester was making. He saw no flame and he thought two shots had been fired. As he got out of the mine he saw that the hay in the stables was on fire.

Mr. A.R. Sawyer, the Assistant Inspector of Mines for the district made an inspection of the scene of the explosion and gave evidence to the court and he gave a detailed account to the damage to the mine that was caused by the explosion. He came to the conclusion that the explosion had been caused by a blown-out shot. After hearing all the evidence the Coroner summed up and after half an hours deliberation, the jury found that the deceased men had met their deaths by accident through the firing of a shot and added a recommendation that all mines should be worked without shot firing as much as possible.

Mr. Wynne commented:

Singular to relate, no attempt was made in this case to disguise the fact that a blown-out shot was the cause of this awful calamity. I mention this the more gladly as nearly every explosion due to this cause that I have the misfortune to investigate, the owners, agents, managers, deputies and workmen make bold attempt to throw dust in the eyes of the Inspectors during their examination and this is carried to a greater extent than formally, now that blasting in mines seems to be doomed.

 Now that the mining community is more greatly represented, and that the voice of reason must be heard, it is not likely that the lives of working men will be allowed to be sacrificed to the silly notion that coals can not be got without the use of an element which must lead sooner or later to the destruction of human life.

REFERENCES
The Mines Inspectors Report.
The Colliery Guardian, 15th May 1885, p.781.

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