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Full Details

Surname
ANDREWS
Forename
Eli
Day
09
Month
09
Year
1911
Age
38
Occupation
Loader
Mine/Quarry Name
Crown Meadow
Mineral Worked
Coal
Owner
Masons Ltd
Location
Tipton
County
Staffordshire
Details of Event
A tub had got loose in the cage while ascending, and both cage and tub were jammed against the sides of the shaft. The second outlet is a pumping shaft owned by the South Staffordshire Mines Drainage Commission. It is 7ft. diameter and 134 yards deep. It contained a line of large pump trees, and was fitted with a signalling wire and a float wire. There were no guides in the shaft. Owing to a difficulty in releasing the cage in the winding shaft, it was decided to raise the men up the pumping shaft by means of a small bowk used by the pump men. Between this small bowk and the bearers on the sides of the shaft there was only from 6ins. to 9ins. clearance. The size of the bowk was barely sufficient for the accommodation of two men. A surface workman who had some little experience of riding on the bowk in this pit, volunteered to conduct the men to the surface. He brought two men up at a time, and had conducted seven hands successfully, but on starting from the bottom with the eighth band of men, consisting of the deceased, another man, and the rider himself, the winding rope was discovered to have fouled either the signal wire the float wire, or both. The signals were inoperative and the bowk was drawn beneath a bearer. The rider endeavoured to stop the bowk by signalling, but his efforts had no effect the signals did not reach the surface and finding he had no control he called to the men to save themselves. He saved himself by clutching a hanging rod and sliding down it to a bearer. The other man climbed up on to the rope and escaped uninjured to the surface, but the deceased was crushed under a hearer and forcibly drawn out of the bowk, and fell to the bottom of the shaft and was killed. In future cases of emergency such as this, one of the pitmen employed by the South Staffordshire Mines Drainage Commission will be placed in charge of the bowk as the conductor.