BLACKWELL “A” WINNING. Alfreton, Derbyshire. 11th. November, 1895.

The Blackwell “A” Winning was one of four large collieries belonging to the Blackwell Company, Limited. The colliery was under the control of Mr. Maurice Deacon who was the general manager and agent. He held a manager’s certificate and frequently went down the pit to inspect the workings. Mr. William Elliott was the certificated manager of this and another similarly sized colliery. Mr. William Bentley was the undermanager for the Low Main and the Deep Hard seams and his duties were confined to the workings in the two seams called the “A” Winning Mine.

The sinking of the shaft started in 1871 with the plan that three seams might be worked. These were the Deep Hard, Low Main and Silkstone Seams. the Silkstone was the lowest and had been worked before it was abandoned in 1881. At the time of the accident, there were only two seams being worked, the Deep Hard and the Low Main. The coal from the Deep Hard was raised at the upcast shaft and that from the Low Main at the downcast shaft. The downcast shaft was 14 feet in diameter and reached the Deep Hard at 180 yards, the Low Main at 237 years and the Silkstone at 2929 yards. The upcast was also 14 feet in diameter and reached the seams at the same depth. The Deep Hard was 3 feet 6 inches thick, the Low Main 4 feet thick and the Silkstone 3 feet 7 inches thick. The explosion occurred in the Low Main seam was the bituminous coal was produced for house coal and manufacturing industry. About 400 men and boys worked in the Deep Hard workings and about 390 in the Low Main seam. The colliery produced about 1,500 to 2,000 tons per day

The workings in both seams were ventilated by a Guibal fan, 45 feet in diameter and 12 feet wide which ran at 44 r.p.m. and produced 140,000 cubic feet per minute. The Deep Hard workings received 63,000 cubic feet per minute and the Low Main about 77,000 cubic feet per minute. The air that went to the Low Main was further divided to the four districts and the stables. At the time of the accident the fan was running normally.

The seams were almost flat and were worked on the longwall system. The whole of the coal, after leaving the shaft pillar, was extracted as the workings advanced. The coal was brought away fro the faces of the four districts by horses and mechanical haulage. The workings were well laid out both in respect of getting coal and the general working and ventilation of the mine.

Naked lights had been used in the mine since it started working, except occasionally in a few stalls or headings where safety amps had been used when they were passing through faulty ground or when firedamp was found but gas had been reported only on two occasions in the ten months before the accident. A small explosion had occurred on the 1st June 1891. On investigation, this was found to have occurred in a rise heading passing through faulted ground and was due to a brattice sheet being disarranged. It was the rule that the Sunday night shift of repairers used licked safety lamps until the deputies had completed their official inspection of the workings. Afterwards, naked lights were used throughout the whole mine.

The haulage roads of the mine were both dry and dusty and water barrels were used daily for damping the floor of the roadways. The coal face was also dry but there were parts of the mine that were damp and free from dust. In some places water came from the roof and floor but generally the mine was dry and dusty. The sides of the main haulage roads were through broken strata and the roof was a worked-out coal seam. There were many cracks and crevices that could accumulate dust. The loaded tubs, drawn by rope haulage at 12 m.p.h., were swept clean of fine dust by the intake air current. The dust was deposited on the roof and sides of the haulage road or was driven into cracks and crevices until they became full of the finest dust.

Blasting by gunpowder had been carried on since the mine was opened and shots were occasionally fired in the main haulage road. Shotfiring certificates were given to the stallmen or contractors which gave them permission to fire shots in any part of the mine. The gunpowder charges of six ounces of grain powder were placed in brown paper bags with a gunpowder fuse inserted and tied at the mouth.

At midnight on the 10th November, 23 night shift workmen descended the mine to prepare the workings for the day shift men on Monday morning. All appears to have gone well until 4 a.m. on Monday when some of the officials felt a concussion which indicated to them that something unusual had happened in some part of the workings. It was soon discovered that there had been en explosion in either the South or the South West workings. The manager and undermanager, who lived close to the colliery, were called at once and descended the mine at once and tried to get to the men known to be in the South District. The main haulage road was completely blocked by a large fall and the party had to enter the district by the dangerous return airway. This was charged with noxious gases and it was a difficult passage.

Mr. Arthur Stokes, H.M. Inspector of Mines was informed of the accident by telegram and arrived at the colliery at 10 a.m. He went down at once with the manager of a neighbouring colliery Mr. S. Watson. In the return airway, they came to the conclusion that there had been an explosion and upon entering No.20 main road leading to the main haulage road and found that the doors blown out and as the exploration proceeded, met heavy falls and broken tubs. This party f explorers met another who had been down the mine, at the junction of No.20 main road with the main haulage road, were found in an exhausted state. They had found one of the officials dead but were able to bring the body out.

The second party went on and found five bodies in the haulage road. The Inspector was told that at a point of 418 yards from the bottom of the downcast pit bottom the tail rope of the haulage gear was rubbing against the side of the roadway and men had been set to remove the projection. Near this point, where the bodies of Jones, Shaw and Gibson and a dead pony attached to two loaded tubs. Nearby was an empty water barrel, turned up on end, a bucket in a refuge hole and the men’s blasting tools and a powder can in another refuge hole. A few yards further on, there was a piece of timber laid across the rails which was the recognised signal that a shot was to be fired. It was evident that the shot had blown out from the side of the road.

The men who lost their lives were:

  • William Martin, night deputy,
  • Joseph Renshaw, examiner,
  • James Fryer, examiner,
  • James Mee, dataller,
  • John Jones, dataller,
  • Thomas Shaw, dataller,
  • John Gibson, driver.

The inquiry into the deaths of the men was held by Dr. Albert Green, Deputy Coroner, at Blackwell. The court heard that there was no doubt that John Jones went down the pit to fire a shot in the South Main Road and remove the obstruction to the haulage. After heading all the evidence the jury brought in the following verdict:

We find that John Jones and six others whose bodies we viewed on  November 13th met their deaths on November 11th. in the low Main seam at the “A” Winning Pit of the Blackwell Colliery Company, which explosion as caused by an overcharged shot of gunpowder but the evidence fails to clearly define the secondary cause.

We find that no blame can be attached to the management, and we believe that all concerned will have benefited from the results of this calamity.

We also wish to express our sense of admiration of the noble courage displayed by the whole of the exploring party, and to thank the management for the assistance rendered to us by the clear manner in which the maps and tracings have been provided and explained.

Mr. Stokes commented on the remarks about the secondary cause when all the expert witnesses recognised the cause of coal dust. He commented:

The failure of the jury to recognise the secondary cause was probably due to the general reluctance of many mining men and others to admit coal dust alone can be fired and rise to such devastating phenomena as those found after a colliery explosion.

 

REFERENCES
The Mines Inspectors Report.
Reports to Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for the Home Department on the circumstances attending an explosion which occurred in the Blackwell “A” Winning Colliery, near Alfreton, Derbyshire, on the 11th November 1895 by Chester Jones, Barrister-at-Law and by A.H. Stokes, F.G.S., one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Mines. Cmd 7947.

Information supplied by Ian Winstanley and the Coal Mining History Resource Centre.

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