Single Record

Full Details

Surname

WALKER

Forename

Alexander

Day

03

Month

06

Year

1927

Age

Occupation

Miner

Mine/Quarry Name

Gauchalland, No.4 Pit

Mineral Worked

Coal

Owner

Burnbank & Grougar Coal Co. Ltd

Location

Galston

County

Ayrshire

Details of Event

3 June 1927: MINERS TRAPPED - ONE KILLED, ONE MISSING. - One miner was killed, one is still missing and two others escaped alive after the caving-in of the workings in No.4 Gauchalland Colliery, Galston, on Friday. Hugh McTurk, of Gauchalland road, Galston, and Alex Walker, of Chapel-lane, Galston were trapped, but two others were able to extricate themselves. Frantic endeavours were made to get at the two men trapped but several hours work by rescuers resulted only in the recovery of Walker's body. So far no trace of McTurk has been found, but digging is being carried out with all expedition. One of the men who escaped sustained severe bruises and shock. [Hull Daily Mail 4 June 1927] Hugh McTurk’s body was found on 6 June 1927 Information from the Mines Inspector's Report - 1927: Sundries One of the fatal accidents occurred at Gauchalland 4/7 Colliery, Ayrshire, which is one of a group owned by Messrs. The Burnbank & Grougar Coal Co., Ltd. In this accident two persons were killed by an inrush of clay, mud, sand and gravel. The circumstances were as follows:—On the night shift of 2nd - 3rd June, five men (including the fireman), who were the only persons underground on that shift, were at work near the extreme top end of steeply inclined pillar and stall workings in a seam 5 ft. 6 in. thick, building what was described as a barricade diagonally across the junction of a heading road and an abandoned level road. A fall of roof had occurred on this level road on the previous; day and these five men were continuing and were to complete what two day men had been put to immediately the fall was brought to the knowledge of the officials of the mine, although that part of the workings was finished. It is unusual to find notice taken of an ordinary fall of roof in a disused place and to find a "barricade " erected. While the men were fixing the timber there was a sudden crash and from the direction of the former fall of roof there came a rush of mud, sand and gravel. It was but a few yards from the place where the men were to the top of a steep haulage incline which led down to a main level on the way to the shaft, and they naturally made this way and ran down the incline, though, as it turned out, they would have been in perfect safety if they had crossed the top of the incline and waited in the level beyond. One man in front of the rush escaped into the first level to the left, another (the fireman) was pushed by a swirl of the rush of material into the same level on the opposite side of the incline. The remaining three, minus lights, were overwhelmed and carried with the mud, sand, gravel, props, rails and sleepers right down to the main level some 200 ft. below. One of them was deposited alive and well—how, I know not—at the inbye end of the rush where it spent itself on the main level, the second was found dead afterwards near the same spot, while the body of the third man was dug out from among the sludge on the main level, outbye of the incline, three days later. The two men who had escaped had one naked light between them, and after a search found the man who had been carried down the incline, but was alive : they tried also for some time to find the others but failed, and as they were exhausted and could do no more they went to the surface. Several peculiar features connected with this accident came to light during our investigation into the circumstances. Gauchalland 4/7 Colliery is a short distance south of Galston town in the valley of the River Irvine, the valley being on the average one mile broad. All of the surface consists of boulder clay lying over and covering the countryside, but a geological section of the strata across the valley shows the coal seams to be lying in true basin fashion, the strata and seams rising more steeply to the North and to the South than the hill sides. To the South, the coal measures near their outcrop end against a large fault beyond which the rocks are of old Red Sandstone age. It was near the southern outcrop the inrush took place. The shafts of the colliery are not far from the point where the seams begin to rise steeply to the South against the large fault already mentioned. No. 4 is the winding shaft, and No. 7 the escape shaft 250 ft. to the South of the former. The lower workings, including much Main Coal, are water-logged and the water level is up to a shallower seam called the Stone Coal at 48 1/2 fathoms. The part of the Main Coal Seam above water level is won by a level cross measure drift from the Stone Coal. The accident occurred in the Main Coal, and this seam, as stated earlier, is worked pillar and stall. Those pillars at and near the site of the inrush were not to be extracted, for reasons which will become apparent. The workings in which the accident occurred are approximately 3,000 ft. East South Easterly from No. 4 shaft, but the way to them is circuitous and becomes steeper all the way to the last incline (Rankin's Brae), which goes 200 ft. direct to the rise at 1 in 2.2 on the average. It was from the roof of a level at the top of this incline (Kane's level) that the material came which swept down Rankin's Brae and an adjoining old parallel road, not used for haulage, to the level in which the bodies of the men were found. The depth from surface to the Main Coal as near as possible to the site of inrush is calculated from levellings above and underground to be 133 ft., i.e., from the grass in the field to the roof of the seam, and this surface is ordinary farm land on the slope of a hill with nothing there to indicate that between the field and the roof of the seam there is anything fluid enough to flow. A man with no local but with a general geological knowledge would look somewhere in the flat of the valley for a pre-glacial gully filled with sands and gravels, but hardly on the hillside above the point of inrush. Mr Finney, Junior Inspector, and Mr. Frazer, Senior Inspector, who was acting for me in my absence on duty at the Mines Department, made inspection on hearing of the accident, and the sum of their reports was that the body of the missing man, after several thorough searches had been made by them and by the Manager and others right to the point of the inrush, was believed to be in the sludge on the level somewhere near the bottom of Rankin's incline, that there was real danger of another inrush, and that there was no doubt of the inrush having come from the roof of Kane's level off the top of Rankin's incline, for they saw the hole in the roof. There was a further and most important thing noticed by both and commented on by both in the pit, viz., that on another incline, four pillar lengths outbye of Rankin's incline and parallel to it, in stalls which they crossed when making their examinations, there was clear and distinct evidence of a former inrush. I made inspection on Sunday, 5th, and can confirm what other Inspectors found. It was also apparent that a new aspect of the application of General Regulation 29 of July 30th, 1920, had arisen. Statements were taken from the officials and from the men who had been involved in the accident, from the persons who had previous knowledge of the site of this inrush, and from persons who had knowledge of previous inrushes, of which there had been not one but two, on the same day, in March, 1926. What is said in these statements amounts to this, that for some years ordinary pillar and stall workings had been going on as far to the rise as coal was found, and after the pillars were formed they were extracted downhill; that in March, 1926, up Hodge's Incline, which is the next haulage incline outbye from Rankin's, one of the levels had reached a point where, instead of the coal being the usual height, it had thinned down to 4 ft. and the usual roof was replaced by materials of another kind like sand and clay; that this roof had to be supported by timbers set as close together as skin to skin ; that the roof in a heading close by collapsed during one night and a rush of clay, sand, etc., came in and got down to the main level, and that some hours later when the day shift was at work another inrush took place from the same neighbourhood and scared the men out of the district. Notwithstanding all this, some extraction of the nearby pillars was persisted in, and clay and sand were seen in the waste after the timber had been withdrawn. That some measures were necessary seems to have been decided upon by the Owners of the mine, for the pillars furthest up in Rankin's Incline and off it, which had been formed, were not to be extracted. Some boring ahead was also done in places going to the rise. Beyond this no steps were taken to do anything to prevent an inrush similar to that which occurred in March, 1926. The Fatal Accident Inquiry was held on 29th July, when the Procurator Fiscal went very fully into the details of the occurrence. As the Inquiry proceeded it became evident the narrowest interpretation possible was being put on General Regulation 29 of the Regulations dated July 30th, 1920, " where coal . . . Is being worked " . . . Etc., bringing out as often as possible that coal was not actually being won at the exact spot where the inrush of June 1927, took place. It is clear that material, some of which was quicksand and some of which was mud (together with lumps of boulder clay) and gravel, came in on 3rd June, just such material as the Regulations are intended to provide against. It is also clear that, although the point where the June, 1927 inrush occurred was only 80 ft. in a direct line from where the March, 1926, inrushes took place, the near proximity of such material being known to the Owners, they took none of the steps set forth in General Regulation 29. It is true that two old surface bore holes (the nearest of which is 900 ft. distant) showed the glacial deposit or boulder clay to be of normal thickness at these bore holes and to contain no dangerous material, and it is equally true that the same seam and other seams had been extracted along the same line from the West for about three miles without any former mishap or indication that the boulder clay was dangerous. But against this is the unalterable fact of the extraordinary deepening of the glacial deposit as revealed in two working places before the inrushes of March, 1926, and also very plainly by these inrushes, all pointing directly to a hidden pre-glacial channel. It is well known that where such deposits thicken at the bottom, as this did, sand and gravel are to be expected. H.M. Geological Survey's Memoir of on the Ayrshire Coalfield, Kilmarnock basin, and, in particular, Pages 101 and 102 - Galston District - mentions specially the prevalence of sands and gravels in the boulder clay, and one bore hole noted shows 106 ft. of mud, clay, sand, running sand, etc. No intimation had been sent to my office of the previous inrushes, which were certainly dangerous occurrences, and nothing was known of them by me until the accident following this last inrush. Had notification of the first been sent to me, investigation would have followed, and I feel quite sure work at that same level would have been prohibited. This accident was most regrettable, and risks in working the coal were taken which ought not to have been incurred. Down to March, 1926, shortly before the first inrush took place, there was nothing unusual, so far as I can learn, either above or underground, to indicate the working would not be as safe as any other underground working. The working places were over 130 ft. below the surface, the same seam and other seams had been worked up to and above the same level for several miles behind them, the boulder clay was of normal thickness over the working so far as it had been proved, and some distance ahead were the abandoned workings of another mine to which Gauchalland 4/7 workings had connected, and in that mine coal had been worked at a still shallower depth than had been reached in this mine. But the inrushes of March, 1926, changed the whole outlook, though even before then, when the roof of the seam and the upper part of the seam itself were found to have been replaced by sandy and clayey material of such soft nature that only skin to skin timbering was of any service, the Owners and officials ought to have seen there was some great change overhead and that the conditions had altered. Whether any Regulations or Rules covered the proceedings or not had little bearing on the case, the exercise of common sense and a proper regard for the safety of the men employed should have pointed the right course to be taken. This accident raises two points :- (1) The inclusion of such occurrences as that of March, 1926, among Dangerous Occurrences to be notified to the Inspector of the Division, and, incidentally, the making of all Dangerous Occurrences notifiable forthwith. (2) The changing of the wording of General Regulation 29 of the Regulations dated July 30th, 1920, to cover places where coal has been worked in the mine as well as places where coal “is being worked." Newspaper report - Ayrshire pages