Hi Fionn
Great site
My Uncle, Sam Hartshorn was one of the rescuers who were at Markham Colliery in May 1938 and responsible for saving lives.

There was a newspaper cutting from 1938 with his picture about his heroic efforts, which went on display at either the museum or the Town Hall in Chesterfield a few decades ago. He remained working in the collieries but joined up in the War, and then returned to work after that was all over. 

Even in his eighties, his eyes still filled with tears when he remembered all who had died. He lived from the late 1940s in Whittington with his second wife Alice who he married just after the War. She pre-deceased him, and he died in 2005.
 
Rosie Brocklehurst (niece)

I am not sure if  my Uncle  Sam Hartshorn was injured and therefore he might not be the linked Sam Hartshorn. He was one of the rescuers singled out for praise for saving a life in 1938.

Hi ya
Just a quick message to say I'm reading your site with interest. My great grandad Philip Yarnold of 39 Poolsbrook Crescent is listed which drew me. He was injured in the Markham disaster. I've read a similar list at Chesterfield Museum.

My dad worked at Markham from 1971 and my husband also had a couple of years down the same mine early in his working life.

I haven't had a chance to work my way through the whole site yet, I've just found it but I think it's great.

Well done,
Marie X

You may like to know that my father, Eric Prest Dodsworth, was on the staff at Markham Blackshale Colliery in 1938. I believe he was the mine surveyor at the time. He was in the rescue team at the 1938 disaster and contributed to the rescue of the miners. He also rescued the leader of the medical team who had, I am told, strayed into a dangerous area. No where do I see his name mentioned in the reports of the rescue. I do remember that, due to the trauma, his black hair changed very soon after to silver white!

He died, still with the NCB as an Area Planner, in July 1954.

In August 1954 I started work in the same Blackshale pit at Markham, and was able to see the area of the explosion, whilst I was a DPT, studying for my Mine Manager's 1st Class Certificate. Because of the explosion incident and the safety measures afterwards installed, I was very aware of the tinder-box situation that would have and still existed in that particular pit.

David J Dodsworth.