PAGE BANK. Brancepeth, Durham. 1st. October, 1858.

The colliery was the property of Mr. R.W. Jackson and had none shaft twelve feet six inches in diameter. It was divided into three equal parts by brattice. One of the parts was the downcast and the other two the upcast. One of these, the engine shaft, went to the pit bank and the other came from the bottom for twenty fathoms, went up a staple seven feet in diameter into a drift near the surface and up a chimney which was forty-five feet tall at the surface. The ventilating air went down the downcast which was also the coal drawing shaft, into the workings and then to the upcast shaft.

When the pit was sunk a blower of gas was encountered at twelve fathoms and it extended all around the shaft. This gas fired and the master sinker was killed in the explosion. The plank tubbing was installed to collect the gas and gas boxes with metal piping was fixed through the tubbing and brought to the surface thirty fathoms above. This arrangement had never caused any trouble. Gas was also encountered at twenty-eight fathoms during the sinking and this was also dealt with by plank tubbing and a pipe into the upcast drift.

The whole shaft was lined with plank tubbing to thirty fathoms, then three fathoms of metal tubbing and stood without the support and was forty-five fathoms deep. The main brattice separated one of the upcast from the downcasts from top to bottom. The main brattice and from side to side of the pit and the quarter brattice extended from the centre of the main brattice at right angles to the west side of the pit. It started at twenty-three fathoms from the surface and went to the pit bottom. At the top of the quarter brattice there was a caphead to send the air through the drift. The caphead was a continuation of the quarter brattice turned at right angles horizontally and turned the air along the drift. At the bottom of the quarter brattice there was a scaffold similar to the caphead below the furnace drift which was to prevent the downcast air getting into the upcast shaft and to leave the bottom of the shaft free.

The furnace drift came into the shaft three fathoms from the seam and was eight feet wide. There was another ventilating drift on the south-east side. The furnace drift and this other entered the upcast drift together. The heated air went through the furnace and the cool air through the second drift. Half of the air passed over the furnace and the other half went partly by the second drift and partly underneath the furnace. On the north-west side of the furnace drift, there was a travelling way in which two doors separated the downcast and upcast air. The furnace was thirty yards from the shaft and was only temporary with bars six feet long, eight feet six inches deep and five feet wide.

A pipe was inserted at the bottom of the well used for feeding the boilers at the surface so that there was always water in the pipe. The pipe was sunk below the surface so that the supply of water could not be stopped and went down the shaft into a box under the caphead and from there into a horizontal box, the length of the quarter brattice and at its side, in which there were holes to distribute the water over the whole of the quarter brattice. The engine feed water was supplied from a pond a considerable distance above which was always full of water. The wastewater from the engine pit and the water from the pumps kept the shaft wet.

About 8 o’clock on the morning of Thursday the 30th September 1858, Thomas Kellett, a back overman at the colliery who was also in charge of the shaft, went down the pit to his normal work. As he was descending, he noticed the smell of burning timber. On reaching the bottom he sent for the principle overman, John Mould and told him that he thought there was something burning in the shaft. They looked up the shaft and could see no fire but both could smell burning wood. They sent messengers to various parts of the mine carrying instructions to the men to come to the bottom of the shaft to leave the pit until any fire that there might be could be put out. Mould got into the cage and Kellett stood on top of it. They intended to find the fire and extinguish it with water.

At the inquest John Mould gave an account of the events at the colliery that day:

On Thursday 30th September I went down the pit at two o’clock in the morning. I was accompanied by three of the deputies, David Bolam, George Robinson and John Waller. We all went down together. There were no men ready to follow us. One of the stoneman, James Stobart, came down after us to mend the rapper. My first duty and that of the deputies, when we first go down, is to see that the pit is right. It was all right that morning. We went into all of the working places or flats, each of us taking a part, and found all was right. We met afterwards in-bye, and the three deputies reported to me that all was right. The men that live at Page Bank came to the pit first. They came in about half-past two o’clock. The Spennymore men follow them. They came in about three. I saw none of the stonemen but Stobart comes down that morning. I did not see Thomas Horsley. The boys came in last, between five and six o’clock. Before any of them come down I report all is right. I was up the shaft a five o’clock to see if the boys were coming in. Stones were being drawn in the shaft between two and five o’clock. Coal is not drawn until the putters (boys) come down. The stonemen were in the pit. When I went down at five o’clock I did not notice anything particular in the shaft. I remained at bank about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes.

I then descended again and remained in the mine until some person come to me. That was Thomas Kellett, one of the deceased and the back overman. The name of the onsetter was George Sheraton. he went on his shift at six o’clock. James Stobart was acting as onsetter till he came. Each time in going down and ascending I observed the shaft and brattice. That is part of my duty as overman. I found everything good in the shaft and brattice, as far as I could see. The deputies look at the shaft as well as myself. The men go down the shafts with Davy lamps. The onsetter and the banksman are instructed not to let naked lights to be taken down the shaft. The men mostly go in the dark, but if they do take lights they are Davy lamps. The lamps are lighted at an oil lamp at the bottom of the shaft near to the onsetter. After half-past five I was seeing about getting the boys started at their work at the different parts of the pit. No one came down to me between the lads and Kellett. he came down about a quarter past eight. I was then in the return at the back of the furnace, at the new furnace drift. Thomas Horsley, George Pattison and William Pattison were working beside me. Kellett sent one of the boys for me to go to him directly. I was to go to the shaft. When I got there he was standing at the bottom of the shaft on top of the cage. He said he perceived the smell of burnt wood. I got on a bunting and smelt burnt wood. We thought we had better go to the bank and put as much water down as possible, and then go and examine the shaft. I could not tell where the fire was before getting to the bank. I got into the cage, and Kellett remained standing on the top. The onsetter, Sheraton, rapped us away. The water was at the time running down the brattice as usual. We were then drawn away. We had been drawing ten or twelve fathoms up the shaft when something fell upon the top of the cage from above and knocked Kellett off the top of the cage. I did not hear him say anything. I could form no idea what it was that fell. I did not see anything fall. I did not see any flash of light at the time. I had not a light with me. I was drawn up. In going up I did not see any fire in any part of the shaft. I got to the surface without any stoppage. I was stopped about a fathom short of the ordinary place. I told the banksman to draw me further up. Smoke was coming up at the time. It prevented the banksman seeing me. The smoke had beaten me up. It came up the shaft thickly. The first time I saw the smoke was when I stopped at the surface. When I got to bank I went to set the water down the engine shaft. That was before I saw the flames coming up. We stopped the (landry) box up with hay and so turned the water down the shaft. Several men assisted me. I was at the bank when I saw the first boy brought up. He was brought up by John Nicholson. I remained there until all the bodies were brought up.

Mould and others went to the spout or landry box where the water pumped from the pit was discharged and tried to direct water down the shaft. Their efforts were hampered by the volumes of dense smoke that were coming out. The fire spread very rapidly and in a very short time flames were coming out of the shaft and the pumping rods and spears were burnt making the pumping engine inoperative.

Mr. Johnson, the viewer of the colliery and the Inspector, Mr. John Atkinson arrived at the colliery a little after 10 o’clock. Flames had stopped coming from the shaft but there was a lot of dense smoke. A small fire engine was being used to pump water from a pipe from the colliery pond into the shaft but the quantity of water was very small and orders were given to cut a channel from the pond to the shaft so that water could flow directly into the shaft. Several carts were pressed into service to carry water from the River Weir which was about a quarter of a mile away to put water directly into the channel.

Word was sent by message and telegram to the surrounding collieries and towns for as many fire engines as possible to come and pump water from the river into the shaft and carts sent for brattice cloth to clear the smoke from the shaft, restore the ventilation and rescue the men and boys who were trapped below.

Mr. Armstrong of Wingate Grange, who was viewer to the lessor of the Page Bank Royalty, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Nicholas Wood, Mr. Thomas Emerson Forster and the Government Inspector, directed the work. The attempt to get air into the shaft by brattice cloth had to be abandoned because the men could not work in the and smoke and heat in the shaft but they persevered and just after ten a.m. the following morning, which was twenty-six hours after the discovery of the fire, all the men and boys in the pit were brought out. There were seventy-six alive and ten dead which included Kellet’s body which was recovered from the bottom of the shaft by Thomas Hall, the under-viewer at the colliery.

John Mould told the inquiry of the recovery of the bodies:

After Nicholson brought up the first boy on Friday 1st October and about ten o’clock I went down. The first dead I saw were three in the levels by the shaft siding, which was near the shaft. They were all on their knees and elbows with their faces downwards. There was some water there about five or six inches deep. Their faces were in the water. They were lying one before another. I cannot say which was first. They were cold as if they had been dead for some time. We had lights. In the first North-West way I found William Coates and Denis Haley, two men James Stobart and Simpson Burns, two boys. There were a number of men living there. There was above a dozen. One of the boys was on his back; the other three were lying on their faces. I had previously found Robinson Wray. He was the first I found. I found him at the back of the furnace lying on his back. There was no water over his face.

The workings extended over about eighty acres and all the victims were found under the township of Stockley on the Page Bank side of the river. Mr. Henry George Hardy, surgeon of Byers Green told the inquest that the bodies that had been brought out of the pit had died from asphyxia produced by the inhalation of smoke. Mr. Allen, the surgeon of Willington, examined Kellett’s body and found that he had met death instantaneously by the fall down the shaft.

Those who died were:

  • Thomas Atty aged 14 years, driver,
  • Robinson Wray aged 13 years, station boy,
  • George Sheraton, onsetter,
  • Simpson Burns aged 11, switchkeeper,
  • George Robinson aged 50 years, hewer,
  • James Coates a hewer,
  • Thomas Lishman aged 16 years, waterleader,
  • James Stobart aged 14 years, waterleader,
  • Denis Haley aged 22 years, waterleader,
  • Thomas Kellett, overman aged 39 years. Knocked off the cage and fell down.

The inquest was opened on the 2nd and adjourned until the 13th. October and Mr. R.S. Johnson of West Hetton, the viewer of the Page Bank Colliery was the first witness. He produced a plan of the colliery and gave a detailed description to the court of the workings and practices that were in operation at the colliery.

On the 11th July, he had a meeting at the colliery with Mr. John Atkinson to discuss the general arrangements and management of the mine. Mr. Johnson outlined plans to the Inspector to make a new drift about a hundred yards horizontal from the shaft to the bottom of the staple. This would make a separate outlet for the air from the seam to the surface and there were plans to make a permanent furnace. Mr. Atkinson approved of the proposed changes and the work commenced at once. It was being carried on at the time of the accident.

John Mould, the overman told the court that just before Kellet sent for him, he had been at the furnace drift where he saw a stone man, John Rivers cleaning bricks in the drift and he could not have done this if they were hot. He had no idea as to the cause of the disaster but he was sure that he had not heard an explosion when Kellett was knocked off the cage.

David Bolam was a deputy at the pit and lived at Page Bank told that after the men and boys had been at their work for a short time, they met him and said they could not get near the shaft for the reek of smoke and that the smoke was going into the workings. He then gave an account of the events in the pit while the smoke was entering the workings:

I told them we would have to go through the broken doors into the return. We went into the return at the back side of the furnace about 30 yards from the shaft. There were a good many other men there. There was no reek there was none coming from the furnace. The smoke went through the shaft doors and returned over the furnace back to the shaft again. We had a consultation. Thomas Horsley, George Pattison, George Robson and myself consulted among ourselves. Horsley and Pattison were stonemen, Robson and myself deputies. We thought it would be best to put the furnace out. It would give us a better chance of putting out the fire. We put the furnace out. About an hour after some of the lads grumbled a bit about it. About one o’clock on Thursday afternoon, about an hour after the furnace was put out, something fell down the shaft and threw the smoke back upon us. George Robson then shouted us to pray. He was very frightened and said we had all only a quarter of an hour to live. He frightened some of the boys very much by shouting and praying. We retreated then from the furnace about 50 yards. About five minutes afterwards she took a suck, and the smoke went back, and most of us went to the furnace. Some went too near the furnace and some went in-bye. The last lamps went out about nine or ten o’clock on Thursday night. Then there was no light left in the pit. Some of the men then got scattered away from us. Some of them got back into the broken way and some into the north way, Most of us stayed behind the furnace. I slept behind the stopping a good bit on the Friday. We remained there till we heard the men going about the shaft on Friday. I was the last one who was got out. I did not know that any of them was dead. Where I was, none of them suffered anything, but from fear. In my opinion, the case of death of Robson and the boys were chiefly fear, and nothing else.

He had no idea what had caused the fire and was sure that he had not heard an explosion.

The brakesman, Thomas Brown of Brancepath Row, received the signal to draw the cage up the shaft and while it was running he heard something fall and shortly afterwards saw smoke coming from the shaft. He heard a shout of, “Fetch her up” and brought Mould to the surface.

The enginewright at the colliery, Thomas Bird, examined the ropes and machinery connected with the shaft almost every day but he did not do so on the day of the accident. He had been previously employed at the Wingate, Seaham and Castle Eden collieries. On the Saturday before the accident, he went down with John Waller and Charles McGlosty to change the lower clack on the pump. They worked with a torch made of a long tin spout with a thick cotton wick. The wick often burned down into the tin and they had to knock it to get it out. When they did this, there were often sparks.

A sinker from Spennymore, John Mackey said he had inspected the shaft after the fire and had found that all the brattice was burnt away to the staple drift and that there were portions that were left hanging. The fire seemed to have been the strongest just above the place where the blower was and the gas from this blower was still burning when he went down but he could not say how it had become ignited.

William Armstrong, the check viewer at the colliery was the next to appear before the inquiry. He gave a detailed account of how the water was sent down the pit to try to put out the fire:

We decided to get down to the drift, if possible, and insert a dam, with a view to extinguishing the fire. To enable us to get down to that point, as well as to get more air into the men the pit, we conducted the water in two or three channels to one side of the pit after this we prepared a cradle and got some air boxes knocked together to assist the sinkers in getting down to the drift end whilst doing this we began to put canvas brattice in. We succeeded in getting four and a half fathoms of brattice in, when the men declared they could not stand the smoke and heat any longer.

He thought that the fire had started in the shaft by a spark from the torch used by the enginewright and the coroner commented that the use of such torches should be discontinued. At this point in the proceedings, a juror commented on the fact that there was only one shaft at the colliery. He said:

Two shafts would be better than one, but they are not absolutely necessary. The pit is a shallow one and there was less necessity for two shafts. I know of no law to compel the sinking of two shafts. There is no law to prevent torches being used in these pits, but the practice could be forbidden in colliery regulations.

Mr. Nichols Wood thought the fire had started from the sparks of the torch and that it was a piece of burning brattice that fell down the shaft and killed Kellett. Mr. Thomas Emerson Forster also concurred with this.

The coroner summed up and the jury took half an hour to come to their verdict:

The jury are of the opinion that the brattice in the shaft was ignited by a spark but from what source the spark came there is no positive evidence to show they are further of the opinion that the whole of the men, save Kellett, died from fear and suffocation, arising from the fire in the shaft, Kellett being killed by falling down the shaft and, further, they are of the opinion no blame can be attached to any person whatever they, therefore, find a verdict of accidental death.

It was not until the Sunday evening after the fire that it was finally extinguished. This was accomplished by exploding five and a quarter barrels of gunpowder in the shaft by lowering them down. Previous attempts had been made to put the fire out with a cannon. When the shaft was being repaired there was so much gas given off that there was an explosive atmosphere some distance from the pit top. The upcast staple of the Page Bank colliery was so damaged by the accident that it had to be abandoned and filled and a second shaft was sunk at the colliery.

 

REFERENCES
Mines Inspectors Report, 1858. Mr. John Atkinson.
The Colliery Guardian, 21st August 1858. p.230.

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

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