Mine disaster hero’s medal sells for £5,000 Rescuers honoured for bravery
Fearless few risked all to save miners trapped after deadly blast
AMEDAL presented to a hero of one of the country’s worst pit disasters has been sold for £5,200 at auction.
The Albert Medal was presented to colliery manager William Morris for rescuing three people following an explosion at Baddesley mine on the outskirts of Atherstone, Warwickshire, in 1882.
It went under the hammer at Spink Auctioneers based in Bloomsbury, London, on Wednesday.
Thirty-one workers lost their lives in the May 1, 1882 tragedy – 23 of them while attempting to reach trapped miners. One victim, Joseph Scattergood, was only 13.
Morris received the Albert Medal second class for “gallantry in saving life on land”.
He and five others descended the treacherous shaft and managed to pull three victims to safety, one the pit owner. All three were so badly burned they died soon after. Following the accident, one Baddesley worker wrote to his fiancée: “There does not seem to be a single woman in the whole district round who is not in mourning.”
The story of Baddesley pit is a story of working class heroism. An underground fire trapped nine men and a following explosion wiped out their rescuers. It unfolded on a bright spring morning when one miner spotted smoke pouring from a shaft.
The fumes were so acrid and the smoke so thick, an initial posse of pitworkers were unable to descend the depths and reach nine workers. Several men were overcome by the fumes.
A fresh call for volunteers was made and colliery owner Stratford Dugdale joined them, hoping his presence would lift the spirits of trapped men.
The rescue began in earnest at 6am and continued until 8.30 when the air in the cramped shaft suddenly became still.
Reports state a “roar of thunder and flames” followed.
Of the 18 men in the advanced rescue party only one managed to scramble to the surface – and he was burned beyond recognition. He mumbled colleagues were still trapped below, but a rescue was too dangerous.
Nonetheless, six men, including Morris, groped their way through smoke and noxious fumes – and were rewarded with the sound of trapped miners crying for help. Three were pulled to the sunlight, but all died.
Later in the day, a heartbreaking decision was made to stop any further rescue attempts: all the trapped men must be dead and the only way to stop the inferno was to seal the shafts.
The pit remained sealed until November.
Only then reclaimed.
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WILLIAM Morris was born in 1853 at Baxterley, Warwickshire, the youngest of five children and began work down the pits as a boy.
He and his fellow rescuers received their richly deserved Albert Medals at the Corn Exchange, Atherstone, on February 19, 1883, from Lord Leigh, Lord-Lieutenant of the County of Warwick. Four received first class medals, six second class. Morris also received one of the Bibles given to those who took part in the rescue and families whose husbands, fathers and sons had perished. Married in 1892, he moved to Coalville, Leicestershire, where he continued to work as a miner. He died on December 11, 1933.
Two monuments to those who died in the disaster were erected. They bear the names of the following victims:
William Stratford Dugdale, 54, owner;
John Pogmore, 57, agent; Frank Pogmore, 27, solicitor; John Parker, 58, manager; Joseph Clay, 52, underviewer; Joseph Day, 31, deputy; Joseph Ball, 48, enginewright; Amos Ball, 26, collier; Thomas Day, 22, collier.
Charles Evans, 32, collier; William Day, 22, collier; William Orton, 56, stallman; John Evans, 25, stallman; Richard Evans, 28, stallman; Rowland Till, 29, carpenter; Samuel Boonham, 49, stallman; John Atkins, 35, collier.
Charles Albrighton Jnr, 20, loader; Eli Smith Jnr, 19, loader; Thomas Besson, 41, collier; John Collins, 17, loader; Richard Archer, 32, inclineman.
William Smith, 46, stallman; John Ross, 51, collier; Joseph Scattergood, 13, incline boy; Joseph Orton, 35, collier; George Bates, 38, stallman; Henry Ratford Snr, 51, stallman; William Blower, 26, collier; William Knight, 31, collier; William Day, 71, collier.