The Wood Pit disaster was a mining accident on 7 June 1878, when an underground gas explosion occurred at the Wood Pit, in Haydock, then in the historic county of Lancashire, in North West England. The official death toll was 189 although contemporary reports at first stated that over 200 had been killed.
The Wood Pit was one of at least 20 collieries in the area operated by the mining company Haydock Collieries. It consisted of the Ravenshead mine and the Florida mine which were linked by a tunnel. [lower-alpha 1] The pit had been sunk in 1866. [1] There had been at least two previous major explosions in the area, claiming 26 lives in April 1869 and 58 in December of the same year. [2] The pit had a chronic problem with firedamp and as a precaution, explosives were never used, with miners relying on picks to manually extract the coal. [3] In addition, workers were equipped with specially-designed safety lamps to prevent accidental ignition of gas. [4]
Most of the mine workers were from Haydock although some came from the neighbouring towns of Ashton-in-Makerfield, Earlestown and Newton-le-Willows. Many of the "drawers", who carried the coal from the mine, were sub-contracted, meaning that their names did not appear on the company's list of employees. [4]
On the morning of Friday 7 June approximately 250 men were working in the pit, 18 in the Ravenshead mine and the rest in the Florida mine. The explosion occurred at 11 am in the Florida mine and was accompanied by a collapse of the coal face. The workers in the Ravenshead mine were successfully evacuated but in the Florida mine there were no initial reports of survivors. Large crowds gathered at the pit head as rescue workers searched the mine and recovered the bodies. [5] The bodies that were brought to the surface were reported to be "shockingly mutilated" by the force of the explosion. [3]
On 8 June the Chief Inspector of Mines Joseph Dickinson reported to the Home Secretary (R. A. Cross) that he had joined the "explorers" in the mine but that attempts to recover the bodies or locate survivors were being hampered by the continued presence of gas and the failure of the ventilation apparatus. [3]
The best explanation of the presence of gas appeared to be that it had escaped from a notoriously dangerous coal seam deeper down the mine known as the "fiery 9ft", but the reason for the ignition was never found. [4]
On Sunday 9 June (Whit Sunday) the local Anglican priest Henry Sherlock, having spent the previous day visiting the bereaved families, was visibly distressed as he preached at St James the Great Church, using as his text John 14:18 ("I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you.") [6]
By 10 June it was tentatively reported that there had been 182 deaths with 16 seriously injured survivors. Many families suffered multiple bereavements: the Boon family lost eight members including Nathan Boon and his four sons. [4]
A fund-raising campaign organised by Lord Derby raised £25,000 for the widows and orphans. [7]
Thirty of the men and boys who died at Wood Pit were interred in the graveyard of St James the Great Anglican Church, Haydock where a memorial was subsequently erected. [6] A second memorial was erected closer to the site of the disaster in 2009. [7]
A mining accident is an accident that occurs during the process of mining minerals or metals. Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground coal mining, although accidents also occur in hard rock mining. Coal mining is considered much more hazardous than hard rock mining due to flat-lying rock strata, generally incompetent rock, the presence of methane gas, and coal dust. Most of the deaths these days occur in developing countries, and rural parts of developed countries where safety measures are not practiced as fully. A mining disaster is an incident where there are five or more fatalities.
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The Minnie Pit disaster was a coal mining accident that took place on 12 January 1918 in Halmer End, Staffordshire, in which 155 men and boys died. The disaster, which was caused by an explosion due to firedamp, is the worst ever recorded in the North Staffordshire Coalfield. An official investigation never established what caused the ignition of flammable gases in the pit.
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Bedford Colliery, also known as Wood End Pit, was a coal mine on the Manchester Coalfield in Bedford, Leigh, Lancashire, England. The colliery was owned by John Speakman, who started sinking two shafts on land at Wood End Farm in the northeast part of Bedford, south of the London and North Western Railway's Tyldesley Loopline in about 1874. Speakman's father owned Priestners, Bankfield, and Broadoak collieries in Westleigh. Bedford Colliery remained in the possession of the Speakman family until it was amalgamated with Manchester Collieries in 1929.
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Gibfield Colliery was a coal mine owned by Fletcher, Burrows and Company in Atherton, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England.
The Maypole Colliery disaster was a mining accident on 18 August 1908, when an underground explosion occurred at the Maypole Colliery, in Abram, near Wigan, then in the historic county of Lancashire, in North West England. The final death toll was 76.
Hapton Valley Colliery was a coal mine on the edge of Hapton near Burnley in Lancashire, England. Its first shafts were sunk in the early 1850s and it had a life of almost 130 years, surviving to be the last deep mine operating on the Burnley Coalfield.
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