Single Record

Full Details

Surname

HENDERSON

Forename

William Ritson

Day

02

Month

01

Year

1905

Age

38

Occupation

Hewer

Mine/Quarry Name

Brayton Domain

Mineral Worked

Coal

Owner

Joseph Harris

Location

Aspatria

County

Cumberland

Details of Event

Deceased and two other miners before descending the shaft, were sitting in a wooden carriage shed with a corrugated iron roof at the end of the storehouse, where they were in the habit of leaving part of the clothes. A right-angled elbow-pipe of a cast iron sludge pipe, 4 inches diameter, was buried about 18 inches near the open end of the shed. This pipe led from a range of eight Lancashire boilers pressed up to 70lbs. and discharged into a tank and was said to have an even fall from the boilers to the tank. When the first sludging for the day was done, the elbow-pipe fractured and a piece of it, about 9 inches long and 3.5 inches wide, was blown out Steam began to come through the ground and eventually filled the shed. The men were not much alarmed, and could all have escaped easily at first, but deceased seems to have delayed and eventually probably became confused, and was so scalded that he died the same day. The piece of displaced pipe has a minimum thickness of 7-32 of an inch, and the casting seemed a good one. The elbow pipe was protected by brick walls covered by a metal plate.