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Full Details

Surname
COOK
Forename
Alexander Forrester
Day
31
Month
01
Year
1933
Age
Occupation
Mine/Quarry Name
Aitken
Mineral Worked
Coal
Owner
Fife Coal Co. Ltd
Location
Kelty
County
Fifeshire
Details of Event
31 January 1933: Fire-Damp Explosion - Inquiry into Kelty Miner's Death - Evidence with regard to an explosion of firedamp in a West Fife colliery was heard in Dunfermline Sheriff Court yesterday, when an inquiry was held with regard to the death of Alexander Forrester Cook, miner, Oakfield Street, Kelty, who died on January 31 in the Dunfermline and West File Hospital from the effects of burning injuries received by him on January 29; in the Jersey Mine of the Aitken Colliery, belonging to the Fife Coal Company (Limited.). Cook, who had been working with other two men in an adjoining part of the underground workings, left his companions to fetch a shovel from the Jersey Mine, in which no one was working at the time. The explosion occurred shortly after he left his workmates, both of whom were knocked down by a great rush of air. Cook received severe burning injuries. Witnesses stated that they had never heard any complaints about the air in the Jersey Mine, nor had they ever heard that there was gas in it. Asked by Mr. H.T. Foster, His Majesty's Senior Inspector of Mines, what he thought was the unusual condition which caused fire-damp to be present on the occasion in question, Samuel Benson, under-manager of the colliery, said that the barometer had fallen an inch from Saturday to Sunday morning, and if there was any firedamp on the strata at all it was bound to have come off that night. The underground firemen were questioned at some length by Mr Foster, as to the method of their inspections at weekends, and as to the operation of the fan at the entrance to the Jersey Mine. On the suggestion of Sheriff Umpherston, the jury added to their formal verdict an expression of opinion that, when men were not working in the Jersey Mine at the weekends and the fan was not in motion, the mine ought either to have been regularly inspected or else it should have been fenced off. [Scotsman 24 February 1933]