The Disaster
WOOD PIT. Haydock, Lancashire. 7th. June, 1878.

Matthew Chorley, of Earlestown, was the furnace tenter and felt a strong blast of air. He was not affected by the afterdamp and made his way to the pit eye and then to the surface without incident. Matthew was the only men to get out of the pit unaided and came to the surface in the cage in which John Turton descended into the fatal pit.

Patrick Melia, of Earlestown, was a metalman working in the Ravenhead Top Delf Mine. He remembered the explosion and tried too run the two hundred yards to the shaft bottom and remembered nothing until Mr. Turton got him out and he recovered at the pit bank. John Williams, also of Earlestown, was working as a hooker-on when he saw dust coming up the shaft and felt himself ‘going to sleep.’ He fell near the knocker and came to on the pit brow suffering a little from the effects of the gas.

Martin King, of Haydock was hooking-on on the top deck in the Ravenhead Main Delf Mine when he heard a loud report and immediately lost consciousness. When he came to, he was on the pit brow. Just before the explosion he was talking to William Wilcox, one of the victims, who had told him it was just before eleven o’clock. William Howard, a dataller of Haydock was in the Higher Ravenhead Mine. He heard the report and tried to get the one hundred yards to the pit eye but was overcome by the gas. He recovered on the put bank after Mr. Turton’s efforts got him out of the mine.

John Leyland, who was in the Higher Florida Mine, was rescued by his brother James who was working at the nearby Ram pit and made his way to the pit as soon as he heard of the accident. He descended the pit, found his brother and carried him on his back. He was reported to be seriously injured and not expected to recover but his name does not appear on the list of victims so it may be assumed that he lived.

Thomas Wood was working with his father at the time of the explosion, inspecting a brick framework. He had a desperate struggle to get out of the pit with the afterdamp but he made it to the surface. His father’s body was found near the bottom of the shaft.

As well as these thirteen a further fourteen were listed in the contemporary accounts giving a total of twenty seven men getting out of the pit after the explosion and a further ten were reported to have been got out of the pit injured.

Meanwhile the runners that Mr. Turton had dispatched for help made their way through the village. officials of the Company and a ready army of volunteer workmen began to assemble at the pit bank. Mr. C. Pilkington, one of the company’s assistant surveyors and other officials on Richard Evans & Company were soon on the scene and Mr. Chadwick, The general manager of Mines for the company took charge of the underground operations.

Several local doctors arrive and one, Dr. Watkins of Earlestown, went down the pit to help the rescuers that were overcome by the gas. He later reported to the press that, ‘some of the men, were too eager with their work. Many of them are searching for missing relatives and place little value on their own lives in a very dangerous situation.’

No one could work in the conditions underground for longer than ten minutes and then they had to go to the surface, often in a semiconscious state to be revived by the doctors who had now arrived at the colliery. Tea and other sustenance was provided at the pit bank.

The damage to the workings and the roadways was soon evident and about one hundred men were engaged in clearing the roadways and trying to improve the ventilation so that they could get into the workings and get the bodies out. Even at this early stage in the operations it was realised that there was little hope of anyone in the workings being alive.

By all accounts this was a dreadfully dangerous and grizzly job. Broken tubs and mutilated ponies littered the loads and had to be moved. The first of the victims that were encountered were badly mutilated with limbs and heads missing and all burnt and black. Two miners who were found at this early stage were brought out alive but badly injured. Their names are not recorded but they died soon after they were got to the surface despite the medical attention that they received at the pit bank.

As the bodies were found they were placed at the side of the road with a ticket attached to them giving them a number and saying where they were found. Since there was a great deal of difficulty and danger in removing them from the pit they were left at the side of the road. Mr. Chadwick lead the working parties and they brought in fresh air as they went along.

Many of the local colliers arrived at the pit to offer help. Richard Evans was there and Mr. Smethurst of Messrs. Dewhurst, Hoyle and Smethurst went down the pit to give practical assistance and advice. together the inspected the mouth of the return tunnel, at the entrance to which was the ventilation furnace which, by some quirk of circumstance, was still alight. As the mine was full of methane gas, it was considered prudent to extinguish the furnace so as to remove any cause of a second explosion and this was done at once.

As Mr. Smethurst ascended the pit, he met Mr. Crippen of the Bryn Hall Collieries and Mr. C. F. Clarke of Garswood Iron and Coal Co. who had just arrived to offer their services but it was seen that Mr. Chadwick was capable and fully in charge of the underground operations. When Mr. Chadwick had organised the work below ground and he was satisfied that all was going well, he returned to the surface.

Periodically, men engaged in the search party were brought to the surface suffering from the effects of the afterdamp. They were attended to by the doctors that had arrived on the scene, Dr. Simpson of Haydock, Drs. Twyford, Jameson, Tatham and Martyn of St. Helens and Dr. Mather of Ashton were all there.

The news of the disaster spread slowly through the village. the villagers were aware of the flurry of activity as the runners went back and forth with messages but few realised the reason for all this activity but as they became aware that something was wrong a small crowd began to gather round the pit bank. Due to the fact that the workmen’s homes were scattered over a large area, Earlestown, Ashton and Haydock in the main, it was only late in the afternoon that the news reached the houses and expected loved ones did not return home from work.

A large crowd began to gather at the colliery and the all too familiar scene that had been repeated at colliery accidents up to modern times began to unfold. A scene of a crowd of silent anxious men and women, mainly women standing around feeling so helpless the strain of the awaiting showing on their faces. Sergeant Gardiner, the local policeman had little trouble with the crowd who were stunned with shock. There was little external evidence of the carnage underground. The pit gear which stood over the downcast shaft and was used for winding men and coal was intact and usable to wind men and materials. The upcast shaft had the furnace light at the bottom and could not be used to wind men and materials.

Underground rescue teams were beginning to see the scale of the destruction. All the stoppings had been destroyed and this had put an and to the ventilation of the mine. There was still a lot of afterdamp but increasing amounts of methane were issuing from the workings. The presence of gas, of course, posed a serious problem to the rescue teams and according to contemporary prints, a primitive form of breathing apparatus was used by the teams although there are no accounts of it’s use in the surviving records.

The work continued throughout Friday evening. By this time it was realised that there was no hope of finding anyone alive in the workings and the main objective was to get the bodies out as quickly as possible. At this time it was thought that there were as many as two hundred and thirty victims but this was only an estimated number and there was confusion over the exact figure.

There had been about two hundred and thirty lamps given out at the beginning of the shift but the exact figure could not be given. The lames were issued to the men from the lamp house when they had been cleaned and serviced by women and boys. They were issued by Mr. Millington who was killed in the explosion so the exact total could not be ascertained. As Friday drew to a close, men were still working underground, having found twenty bodies and the silent waiting crowd on the surface gradually lost hope of seeing their loved ones alive again.

Early on Saturday, Mr. Hedley, the Assistant Government Inspector of Mines arrived at the colliery. The district Inspector of Mines, Mr. Henry Hall was away at a conference in France at the time but he came back as a soon as he heard of the disaster to arrive at the colliery a week later. His deputy was investigating an explosion at Mold in North Wales at the time and so it fell to Mr. Hedley to be the first Government representative at the scene. At about six o’clock on Saturday, the first jig brow was reached but the ventilation was poor and he presence of methane showed in the miners lamps on the exploring party. With the possibility of another explosion it was decided to withdraw. For two hours working parties tried to improve the ventilation but all they had to show for their efforts was the recovery of two more bodies believed to be Edward Waterworth, a married man with six children and his son Henry aged twenty one who worked as his drawer both of New Boston, Haydock.

As the furnace he been extinguished, it was realised that there would not be enough ventilation for the teams working in the mine. To try and increase the ventilation a bucket chain was formed to pour cold water down the downcast shaft and a stem jet was installed in the upcast shaft. Even so it was found that three thousand cubic feet of air a minute was being lost and the underground teams were unable to cope with the large volumes of gas that they encountered.