NEWDIGATE. Nuneaton, Warwickshire. 3rd. September, 1931.

The colliery was the property of Messrs. Newdigate Colliery (1914) Limited. Mr. D.S. Newey was the Colliery Manager and Mr. Arthur Pugh the undermanager. Mr. J.L. Smith, who held a First Class Certificate of Competency acted as Assistant to Mr. Newey. At the time of the explosion, Mr. Newey was on holiday but he returned to the colliery as quickly as possible and made an underground inspection on the evening of the day of the disaster.

The explosion occurred in the No.1 District of the Two Yard Seam at the Newdigate colliery which was near Nuneaton at about 10 a.m. on Thursday 3rd September, 1931 when four men were killed and five others burned. Four of these, five later died in hospital.

The No.1 North District was about 2,200 yards from the shafts and consisted of a longwall face which was known as 6’s face. This was about 60 yards long with one intake road and another left as a return. About 3,700 cubic feet of air per minute of ventilating air entered the intake.

The coal that was being worked, the Two-yard Seam, was about five feet thick and consisted of the top leaf of the Warwickshire Thick Coal. The seam was underlaid by fireclay, 6 inches thick which was undercut by an electrically driven coal cutting machine. When the coal was got it was loaded on to a shaker conveyor which was driven by an electric motor at the top end of the face, just beyond the entrance to the return road. The conveyor delivered into a mechanical tub loader which was in the intake road. There was a gentle rise of about 1 on 20 along the face from the intake to the return.

The workmen used Oldham electric safety lamps and Hailwood combustion tube flame safety lamps in the proportion of four to one. The Hailwood lamps were also used by the officials. Shots, when required, were fired by the deputies and qualified and properly appointed shotfirers.

”Pixie Powder” was used for stone dusting the roof, floor and sides. Samples of dust were taken from intake, thirty and forty yards from the face on the 22nd. July, 1931 and the roof sample was found to contain 28.66% and that from the floor, 25.66% of combustible matter.

In the No.1 District there were three shifts of deputies and three shifts of men and the district was visited by an overman during each shift. On the 3rd. September, the day shift deputy, Walther Casey who was off the previous shift, got to the face about five minutes to eight. Casey had told him that everything was all right with the exception of a slight fall about five yards to the right hand of the loader in No.6’s gate.

On arriving at this fall, Yorke found three men of the previous shift securing the roof over the fall; they had set two eight feet bars and had started to chock up the bars to the bind above. Yorke got up into the cavity and tested for firedamp but found none. He then sent the three men home and set two dayshift men, J. Marston and H. Byard, top complete the job.

Just beyond the fall, Yorke saw that the coal supporting the face of the stall bars which were needled into the coal at the face end and supported by a prop at the other, had fallen. This coal was of a powdery nature and he told two men, Harry Harlett and Sam Wright, to set eight feet bars between the five stall bars and to needle them into the coal as far as possible. he then made an examination of the face, setting men to work as he travelled along. he found no firedamp anywhere until he arrived at the top end of the return airway where he found less than one percent. He found that a brattice cloth, which extended from the pack on the right side, had sagged a little from the top, so he tacked it up and then returned down the face. There was no evidence that there was anything abnormal with the ventilation.

In the top end, Yorke left a collier, W.J. Hollis, whose job it was to get put the cutting side of the face and to look after the conveyor. Hollis had an electric lamp and a flame lamp. He hung the flame lamp on a bar at the side of the conveyor motor.

As Yorke came down the face he passed three men, J.J. Miles, J. Casey and A. Casey, who were repairing to clear up the cuttings and get the bottoms out behind the coalcutting machine. A. Casey was sent out of the face to another job shortly after. He then passed three men, W. Harward, H. Marsden and E. Owen who were attending to the coalcutting machine. He then came to the part of the face where the coal had not been cleared. He put two men, J., Blackwell and J.W. Morris to hew it down. He was the called to another part of the face where he had told Hartlett and Wright to set the eight feet bars. On arriving there, he was told by Wright that in making the needle, he had cut into a slip and he thought is was the gob. Yorke made an examination of the hole and told Wright that he was mistaken and what was there was a drop or slip fault of about 9 inches. Yorke made tests for firedamp in the hole but did not find anything. He was at this part of the face when the overman, George Wright came in to see the fall in the 6’s face. Having seen that the repairs were almost completed, he met deputy Yorke and travelled up the face with him where the deputy showed him the part of the face where Wright though he had struck a gob.

Wightman thought is was a small slip and after he had left, Yorke went into the face where he noticed some coal had broken away from a bar about 5 yards on the outbye side of the coalcutter. He told a man to set a middle-set bar, leaving enough room for the cutter to pass under. He then went down the face again to where Harry Harlett and Sam Wright were setting the bars and while he was giving a hand with the work, the coalcutter driver, Hayward, came down the face to tell him that the mid-set stall bar had snapped off in the middle and partly buried the cutter. This was about 9 a.m.

Yorke went to the cutter and told Hayward not to work it again until two 8 feet bars had been drawn on each side of the stall bar which had snapped. Hayward and Miles went to get the bars and Yorke went beyond the fall into the top end to test for firedamp where he found that the slight trace he had found on his first inspection had cleared.

Hayward and Miles were not successful in their search for the bars and they returned to the face. Yorke then went to get some bars, taking Harry Harlett with him. The explosion occurred at about 10 a.m. as Yorke and Harlett were returning to 6’s face by way of 6’s dip and were between 500 and 600 yards from the face. Yorke said he felt a sudden rush of wind accompanied by dust which he thought was the road dust picked up from the floor. Hartlett said there was a gust of strong wind and just a bit of a thud. The gust of wind stopped him walking.

E.J. Robinson, the stallman was working at the loader at the intake gate, heard no report or saw a flash but felt the gust of wind. His lamp which was standing on a girder was knocked down and went out but came on again. J.G. Marston was working at the intake end of the 6’s face throwing his coal directly on to the loader. At the moment of the explosion, he was facing the coal face bending down. The noise he heard was a loud crash and then there was a blast of hot air. and he was thrown onto the conveyor at the foot of the loader. Harry Byard was facing the waste about 10 yards from the face of the headway when he was blown over. Neither of the two men was burned.

At the moment of the blast, Samuel Wright was working on the face. He heard a terrific bang which seemed to come from the far end and he was burned on the upper part of his body, blown over and peppered with small coal. All the men working outbye of Wright were badly burned and none of them survived.

When the explosion occurred, Yorke sent Hartlett for Wightman, the overman but on his way he met Mr Smith, who was the acting manager who immediately went down 6’s dip towards the face and met Whitman and several of the haulage hands in the return where it joined 6’s dip. Whitman told Smith that the air was not moving and the face was not clearing. The men were anxious to go down the return airway and he agreed to this and went with them for about 200 yards. There was no blockage and the air was quite good and no smell of smoke but he thought it foolhardy to go further and so brought the men back to the 6’s dip and then went towards the face.

The brattice cloths across 6’s dip which divided the intake from the return were all in position and had not been damaged by the blast. Whitman sent for a shotfirer and relief deputy, James McCullum and with him leading, they tried to get long the face thought the air was very thick with smoke. Byard, Marston and Dick Roberts succeeded about 11.45 in getting as far as the cutter where they found the body of J.W. Morris and later the bodies of J. Casey, J.J. Miles and W.T Hollis.

McCullum made and examination for firedamp but found none. A further examination was made later which also proved negative and the bodies were recovered.

Those who lost their lives were:

  • J.W. Morris.
  • J. Casey.
  • J.J. Miles.
  • W.T Hollis.

5 others burned and 4 died.

The inquiry into the disaster was opened at the Co-operative Hall, Abbey Street, Nuneaton on the 10th November and was concluded on the 14th November 1931. It was conducted by Sir Henry Walker, CBE., LL.D., H.M. Chief Inspector of Mines and the report presented to Isaac Foot Esq., MP. Secretary for Mines. All interested parties were represented and Mr. W.E.T. Hartley, H.M. Inspector of Mines for the Midland and Southern Division appeared for the Mines Department with Mr. E. Rowley and Mr. G.N. Scott who were Senior and Junior Inspectors respectively.

After the disaster, Mr. Smith, the undermanager and David Casey, overman, examined the face and the return airway and found no obstruction and a test for firedamp by Casey was made and no gad found. The roof was weighting and Mr. Smith gave orders that props should be set to keep the face open.

Mr. Rowley and Mr. Scott, Mines Inspectors, inspected the face later in the day and found that the weighting to the roof was very severe, especially near the coalcutter. They thought that if the extra timber had not been set the face would have been lost and any inspection impossible. Mr. Rowley found that there was very little damage caused by the explosion and there was very little firedamp present. Mr. Rowley considered the explosion had been quite small and had covered a limited area. He said:

Except that the timbers were a bit blackened with dust at the top end, I quite think I could have been taken into that face and probably come out without having realised that an explosion had occurred.

At the inquiry, there were several opinions as to the source of the firedamp which had caused the disaster. Mr. J. Ivon Graham, Deputy Director of the Mining Research Laboratory at the University of Birmingham thought that there were two possible sources, form the waste owing to the barometric changes and from the spot coal where Samuel Wright was making a “needle” hole for a bar. The first suggestion was discarded as there was, in his experience, little firedamp in the wastes of this colliery and neighbouring collieries and he thought that the gas came from the mushy coal.

Smith Yorke and Wightman thought that the gas came from the slip fault. Rowley said:

There was a lot of thin coal operating that day which to my mind would tend to produce gas. You had a low barometer and you had the place on weight. You had the face somewhat disturbed and you would have gas give off from all these causes chiefly through coming from the waste because of the low barometer.

Mr. James McCullum thought the gas came from the heavy weighting which was along the whole length of the 6’s face.

After the explosion an electric lamp, No.348 was found with its glass and bulb broken lying on the floor next to the conveyor on the face side. It was thought that the gas was ignited by the glowing filament of the lamp which had been issued to J.W. Morris with whom J, Blackwell had been set to work to hew off a knob of coal. The events were surmised that Morris inadvertently broke the lamp in hewing the coal and the gas ignited at the filament.

Mr. J. A. Bernard Horsley, H.M. Electrical Inspector of Mines, thought that the gas could have been ignited at the conveyor motor and he had found defects in the contacts in the plug connector.

Sir Henry Walker considered all the evidence and came to the conclusion that:

The firedamp was suddenly ejected from the waste by a heavy fall and that an explosive mixture was formed at the end of 6’s face and there ignited by an arcing in the plug connector of the conveyor motor.

 

REFERENCES
The Mines Inspectors Report.
The report on the causes and circumstances attending the explosion which occurred at Newdigate Colliery, Warwickshire, on the 3rd September 1931 by Sir Henry Walker, C.B.E., LL.D. H.M. Chief Inspector of Mines.
Colliery Guardian, 18th March 1932, p.542.

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

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