OLD FIELD. Longton, Staffordshire. 25th. May, 1855.
The colliery was the property of W.H. Sparrow and six men lost their lives in an explosion of firedamp. There were two shafts at the colliery between 300 and 400 yards deep and a dip or incline 600 yards to the deep. at the bottom of this, a small quantity of work had been opened and little gas had been encountered while the ventilation was good.
The day before the accident the shaft of the engine at the bottom oft he pit which was used to draw the coal up the incline broke and the engineer put out the fire under the boiler. The colliers had stopped working. Next morning John Lloyd, the ground bailiff or manager, ordered a number of men to go down the pit, some to clear airways, waggon ways and others to do general repairs and Lloyd went down with them with a boy.
Shortly after 9 a.m., the explosion took place caused by the naked light which the boy was carrying. It was several months before the workings could be examined as the coal caught fire.
Those who died were-
- John Lloyd and six others.
Mr. Wynne, the Inspector commented:
Before the disaster, I recommended that a furnace should be put into the pit at once, even if it were used as an auxiliary. I cannot conceive how any man in his senses, possessing the smallest amount of mining knowledge, could proceed himself and direct others to perform work that is at all times attended with some amount of danger after the only means of ventilation was cut off. Lloyd was. I believe, a sober steady man, but was brought from South Staffordshire, the worst of all school for miners. I am therefore led to the conclusion that his own life and the lives of the six others were sacrificed to an entire want of knowledge on his part of the first and plainest principles of ventilation.
Information supplied by Ian Winstanley and the Coal Mining History Resource Centre.
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