HAFOD-Y-BWCH. Ruabon, Flintshire. 11th. December, 1873.

The colliery was the property of the Ruabon Coal Company Limited. An explosion resulted in the deaths of five men and another was seriously injured. Mr. Peter Higson, the Inspector for the area was ill at the time and asked Joseph Dickinson to examine the mine and attend the inquest. The colliery had two shafts, a downcast and an upcast sunk to 610 yards. The Main Coal in which the disaster took place was 502 yards from the surface and was ventilated by a furnace at the bottom of the upcast shaft. The colliery was worked solely with locked safety lamps and only the man in charge below ground carried a lamp key.

David Williams was the man in charge of the work at night and gas had accumulated about 650 yards from the pit eye. He was ordered to fix a door to divert the air current and so remove the gas. He and two others went to fix the door and three other workmen were sent to repair some timbering a short distance from them. They were the only people in the pit at the time.

When the door had been built Williams unscrewed the top off his lamp to see that the door was a good fit and that no air was escaping. As soon as he placed the lamp near the door the explosion took place and Thomas Prichard was killed on the spot and five others were burnt. Four of them died the following day from their burns.

The men who died were:

  • Timothy Prichard aged 34 years, dataller,
  • David Williams, aged 37 years, master dataller,
  • Thomas Davis aged 26 years, collier,
  • William Wynne aged 25 years, collier,
  • Anthony Boyer aged 18 years, filler.

The inquest was held by Mr. Thelwall, the coroner. Joseph Dickinson, the Inspector from Manchester was there and Mr. Jones a solicitor of Wrexham represented the Amalgamated Association of Miners. Mr. Webster, the Agent of the colliery, was also present.

Evidence was taken from John Johnson the certificated manager of the colliery who had been down the colliery on the 29th November when there had been a complaint about gas from Joseph Dodd. The men had been withdrawn from that part of the workings but he did not see any reason to withdraw men who were timbering. There were about 35 men employed in the Main Seam to keep the mine in good order. There was a problem with the roof weighting and the timbers had been crushed and replaced several times but he had not seen any gas when this happened.

Williams had been a fireman for eleven years and was a careful and attentive man who was liked by the colliers. The damage caused by the explosion had been slight and he thought that there was not much gas that had fired.

Samuel Atherton was a colliery who went down in the morning with Williams who asked him to stop n the evening to put up a door. He was there when the incident happened and told the court that he was afraid that gas may fire. He told Williams who said, “Oh, we’ll shift it in a minute.”. Atherton observed that “Williams was wrong to take the top off the lamp.” On questioning by Mr. Dickinson, Atherton said he had seen a man named Wynne come to Williams to have his lamp lit and Williams had done so. There was not a lamp station in the mine. Joseph Dodd testified that he had seen gas in the mine.

The Corner asked Mr. Dickinson if Mr. Jones had broken the 6th. General Rule and Dickinson answered:

Mr. Johnson stated that this was not a part of the mine which was reported dangerous, but was aired with a sub-split of air and I do not think that if you laid information upon that point you would get a conviction.

The coroner summed up and after half an hours of deliberation the jury returned the following verdict:

We say, that the explosion was caused by David Williams, since deceased, having improperly opened his lamp and that the said David William was guilty of gross and culpable negligence, but that such negligence did not amount to criminal negligence.

 

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

Return to previous page