Sir
Came across your website whilst searching my family tree I believe my paternal grandfather was killed in the 1927 Marine disaster. His name was William Thomas Jones who was married to my grandmother Lily Maude Jones.

I have checked the report and the video but it doesn't tell me much.

Can you shed any light on this for me please?

Many thanks in anticipation
Yours faithfully
Ken Manley

Hi,

I came across this site by accident.

I read the piece on the Marine Colliery disaster, Richard Wilkinson, is mentioned on page 2, he was part of the rescue team at the Marine Colliery 1927 disaster, and I wondered if he was my relative Richard Wilkinson.  I have an obituary about him and it says he was an official at the Mine before retirement. Richard died in 1958 at the age of 71 Years. Sadly I don't have any photos of him but do have some of his Sister's and of Joseph, his Brother and some of his Parent's.

The family lived in Canning Street Cwm. They moved to Cwm about 1900/1901 from Lathom, Lancashire, Richard's Father, Joseph Wilkinson, had been a fireman at one of the Pits in Lathom/Skelmersdale, Lancashire area before they moved, sadly Joseph died in 1903, his Widow, Hannah and some of their family remained in Cwm. According to Richard's obituary he was well involved with the Marine Colliery and Sports clubs in Cwm.

Regards,
Ellen.

Fionn

I came across your site whilst searching for information on the Marine Colliery and saw the email on there from Kevin McCormack about his relative Bert Button.  There isn't any way to contact Kevin directly via your site and I was wondering if you could perhaps forward this to him on my behalf.

The photo shown next to Kevin's email shows and mentions in the caption Bert Pitts - my grandfather! I was so surprised to see this picture, especially as I also have a copy of it! I didn't know which one was Bert Button though as my Dad has now passed away and he'd never captioned the picture for me!  I only knew which one was my Dad Bert Pitts.  Bert P and Bert B were, according to my later Father and my Aunt, best friends and grew up together in the Cwm and then went through the war together, with Bert's (P) brother-in-law Jack Barnfield. 
My Aunt remembers how my grandfather was devastated when Bert B died in the disaster.  The story goes that they had swapped shifts that night, Grandad was supposed to be working the night shift and Bert B the morning shift the next day.  Bert B asked Grandad to swap shifts with him as he was due to go to a wedding the next day in the Cwm.  My Grandad felt guilty for the rest of his days even though he had swapped at Bert B's request.  Apparently he looked after Bert's family from then on, particularly sharing his monthly coal allowance with them as they lost this allowance as soon as Bert died.

On Ancestry, if Kevin has a subscription, he will find Bert Button's WW1 service record.  There are also records at Gwent Archives about the disaster and funerals. 

Don't know if this is of any help to Kevin but thought I would pass it on anyway.  I'm happy for you to pass on to Kevin my email address if he so wishes to get in touch. 

Regards

Ceinwen Scales (Mrs)