Talke o’ th’ Hill Colliery Explosion – Talke – 1866

TALKE O’ TH’ HILL. Talke, Staffordshire. 13th. December 1866.

The colliery was in the Parish of Talke about a mile from Hardcastle Station and was owned by the North Staffordshire Coal and Iron Company. There were two shafts. Both the downcast and upcast were 11 feet in diameter. The first workings were reached at 160 yards and were in the Ten Foot, where 20 men were employed. The intake there was 5 feet 6 inches by 7 feet. In November, Mr. Wynne, the Inspector, measured the air going in there and found 18,000 cubic feet per minute. The Truro were the next workings at 200 yards with an intake 5 feet square and 9,000 cubic feet per minute entering these workings. Fourteen or fifteen men were employed there and there were no complaints to the Inspector by the men. The greatest length of the workings was 500 yards from the shaft and each of the workings were ventilated by a furnace. The opening into the Seven Feet workings where the explosion took place, was 6 feet by 6 feet 6 inches and were 300 yards deep. In the upcast shaft, the opening into the Ten Foot was 10 feet by 5 feet 6 inches and that into the Truro 10 feet by 8 feet. There was an opening into the upcast from the Seven Foot and there was an opening at the mouthing from the Seven Foot into the upcast shaft at the time of the explosion.

There were 150 men down the pit at 5 a.m. when a loud report and flames rushed up the shaft and the county side was covered with soot and the shock was felt half a mile away. The explosion took place at 11 a.m. on Thursday and the first reports said that about one hundred lives had been lost.

Anxious people gathered at the pit and they hindered the rescue attempts. The colliery manager, Mr. Johnson cleared the pit bank and the cages went down the nine and 50 terrified lads were brought up the No.2 shaft and several were brought up the No.1 but they were burnt. The rescued were revived with brandy. The injured were tended by Messrs. Barnes Bruce and Greatorex and in the incumbent of Talke, the Reverend M.W.M. Hutchinson comforted the families.

Frequent relays of workers went down the pit but were met with a very damp atmosphere and many of the men who had got out of the No.2 shaft volunteered to go down. The bodies lay apart from their limbs and several were headless. There were forty-three dead and thirteen injured and they were thought to be 40 to 50 still in the pit. The stables had fired and the 7 or 8 horses had been killed the bodies of the dead were washed and then identified by their loved ones.

Those who died were:

• Thomas Moulton, single.
• Noah Taylor, married and family.
• Charles Dulton, single, son of Edward Dulton.
• Samuel Bentley, married, no family.
• George Hicks, married with four children.
• John Maddere.
• Spencer (no christian name), married.
• Matthew Scrrait(?), single.
• James Thomason, married.
• Ephraim Cumberland.
• Allen Turncock, boy.
• Samuel Slater, single.
• David Higgins, married and family.
• George Kent.
• Edward Derby, married with child.
• George Reaves, boy.
• Samuel Kenynon, married with five children.
• William Ratcliffe, married with four children.
• James Sproston, single.
• Thomas Knowles, a widower with six children.
• William Jenkinson, married with two children.
• Frederick Bally, single.
• Edward Dutton, married with four children.
• John Hart, single.
• James Boughey, married with three children.
• Thomas Murray, single.
• Peter Frost.
• John Breeze, boy who supported his mother.
• William Stanley, married, no family.
• James Johnson, married with four children.
• Samuel Cartlidge, married, one child.
• William Arthur, boy.
• Thomas Jenkinson, married, five children.
• John Macbeth, boy.
• Frank Brereton, boy.
• David Rigby, boy.
• James Rigby, boy.
• James Booth, single, supported widowed mother.
• Henry Critchley.
• William Archer.
• William Frost.
• Henry Denby, boy.
• John Billington.
• William Robinson, single.
• Joseph Yoxall, married, three children.

The remains of these forty-eight victims were removed to the Swann Inn and identified with eight or ten others who had been badly disfigured. The remainder of the dead, including those disfigured, were brought out by the following night.

• James Bidders.
• Thomas Griffiths, single.
• John Grindley, single.
• William Booth.
• Walter Fletcher.
• John Yoxall.
• Daniel Johnson.
• James Finney, married, two children.
• John Vernon.
• Thomas Beresford.
• George Kent.
• Michael Fletcher.
• Ralph Henshall.
• Joseph Browning.
• Thomas Blackhurst.
• Thomas Daniels.
• Edward Clewes.
• Peter Twist, single.
• George Boughey.
• William Trot.
• John Beddow, single.
• George William  Evans, married, two children.
• Samuel Harrison, widower, two children.
• William Robinson, single.
• Daniel Ball, four children and supported his mother.
• William Washington, single.
• Ralph Cartwright, married, three children.
• James Oldfield, single.
• William Stanley, married, one child.
• Noah Billington, married, two children.

The inquest was opened into the death of Nicholas Fletcher and 90 others who were killed in the explosion.

Mr George Johnson was the general manager and there were two firemen on that turn James Sharples and Samuel Kenyon. James Blossoms and George Hides were the night firemen that week. Hicks had taken Sharples’ turn on that day as he had hurt his shoulder. Mr. Johnson heard the explosion as he was coming down the steps of his house and saw the smoke coming from the pit.

The first person he met was Thomas Nicholls who had responsibility for the underground workings, who went down into the pit alone. Nicholls gave his evidence to the court. He said:

I have been underground manager at the colliery for seven or eight years. I have to see that all is right in the workings, and that the rules are properly attended to. I was last in the works, before the explosion, on the Tuesday afternoon, and in that part where the explosion took place. I saw nothing at all wrong with that place, but all was clear. If the fireman finds anything wrong when he examines the pit in the morning, the overman sends me a note up. No note was sent up on the morning of the explosion. I got to the pit about 6 a.m. on that morning. I believe the workings were examined by Samuel Kenyon. he is dead. Had he failed to discover it would have between the duty of Nicholas Fletcher, the overman, to report him for a breach of the 20th Rule. The colliers themselves would expose a neglect of this kind. I have never received a report that any fireman had failed to perform his duties. Shortly before the explosion I was going down the pit with Wilkinson and Billington, but was called off for a moment. They went down, the explosion took place and they were killed. As soon after the explosion as possible, I made arrangements for the men to come up by another shaft, and then prepared top descend the shaft up which the smoke caused by the explosion had been driven. I shouted down and was answered, upon which I went down the shaft. That was certainly under an hour. When I got to the bottom I found a number of living men there and I sent them up as fast as I could. I think there were four or five cage loads and there might have been 20 or 30 men.

The men are not permitted to use naked candles but safety lamps are provided. James Oldfield was the lampman that morning and it was his duty to see that the lamps were locked before he gave them to the men. They were locked by a direct screw. When the colliers finish work they deliver the lamps up at the lamp office on the pit bank. Each lamp is numbered, and everyone has his own number. Gunpowder was used for blasting in the workings in which the explosion took place. it was the duty of the firemen to see that he blasting was properly carried out. Gunpowder is used day and night when the occasion requires. I do not think that blasting had anything to do with the explosion, for no shots had been fired recently. I am not aware of smoking having ever been practised in the pit. I have never received a report to that effect. I have never smelt smoke in the pit. There is a rule prohibiting smoking.

The jury retired and returned the following verdict an hour afterwards:

We find that Nicholas Fletcher and 90 others met their death by an explosion of gas in the north Staffordshire Iron and Coal Company’s Banbury Mine of the 13th of December last. No positive evidence has been brought before us to show how the accident occurred but was are of the opinion that an accumulation of gas had taken place in some lower workings, in consequence of the upsetting of a train of coals in a doorway, and that the gas coming into contact with a naked light, unlawfully exposed by one of the miners exploded. We find that of the rules and regulations made by the managers of the pit had been carried out as they ought to have been by their subordinates, the explosion might not have taken place. We regret to see the culpable negligence shown by James Bossons and Charles Lawton in violating the rules made for the protection of their life and property in the pit. we should suggest that means be adopted by Mr. Nicholls, the under-bailiff of the mine, for carrying out more strictly the rules of the pit with regard to the men firing their own shots, brushing out the gas themselves, smoking pipes and relighting their lamps in the return air. We cannot too strongly urge upon the Government the necessity of adopting additional inspectors of mines.

The Coroner asked the jury if this meant that the men had come to their deaths in an accidental way and the foreman agreed. The signatures of the jury were obtained to the verdict and they were discharged by the Coroner who thanked them for their valuable service.

REFERENCES
Mines Inspectors Report 1866, Mr. Wynne.
Colliery Guardian, 15th December 1866, p. 473.

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