Where men delve, there death dwells
Countless Black Country miners were killed in accidents
THE above scene was one repeated many times across the Black Country in the 19th century – a colliery amidst a blasted landscape of spoil heaps and barren earth.
This picture was taken towards the end of the century and shows Homer Hill Colliery in Cradley. The pit was owned by Samuel Evers and Sons, firebrick and refractory makers, and both fireclay and coal were mined there.
Mining in the 19th century was an extremely hazardous occupation. Not only was the work gruelling but it was usually carried out in filthy cramped conditions and stifling heat. Added to the discomfort was the ever present danger of fire, poison gas, collapse and flooding. Death was commonplace. Individual fatalities were so frequent as to arouse little notice beyond the victim’s immediate family, but all too often death’s hand fell on whole groups of men, from old experienced hands to young boys just starting life in the pits. Then, whole communities grieved.
The Homer Hill Colliery was the site of a mining disaster on November 1, 1866. The pit was just a year old at that point, the shaft being first sunk in 1865. It was 270 yards deep. That morning a “fireman” went down the shaft to inspect the workings and make sure that they were safe. Satisfied that the ventilation was all fine, around 50 men were lowered down.
The mine’s manger, Mr Foley, was also down the pit and near where the miners were working when disaster struck. The was a violent explosion, around 500 yards from the bottom of the shaft. Many of the men were burnt but were still able to make it to the bottom of the shaft and then to the surface, although two men had to be carried.
On the surface it was found that 16 of the men were injured seriously enough to be sent home and they were dispatched in carts to be visited by the colliery owners later that day. Twelve men were killed by the explosion. Their names were William Westwood, George Griffiths, William Gordon, Eland Burnbrook, Jesse Heathcote, Francis Burrell, Daniel Hart, William Buddleton, William Hadock, John Poulton, and the two who had been carried from the mine, John Edwards and Solomon Guest. There were two inquests; the first was on the bodies of Westwood, Edwards, Griffiths, Gordon, Burnbrook, Heathcote, Burrell, Hart and Buddleton, before Ralph Docker, the long-serving north Worcestershire coroner and father of industrialist Dudley Docker. The second inquest was held at the Bluebell Inn in Quarry Bank, on the deaths of Hadock, Guest and Poulton before W.H. Phillips.
The inquests heard evidence that the men were at what was called the “Nine Feet” working, suggesting they were digging a seam of the famous Black Country “thick coal”, and that the explosion occurred at 7.30am. The blast blew out the candles further along the working and then a wall of fire blasted down the tunnel, burning the men but passing on so that they could still walk to the foot of the shaft and make their escape.
The juries found that the men that died were “accidentally killed” and that the fireman was at fault for not examining the mine workings properly at the start of the shift.
That was the end of the matter. Fatal accidents were accepted as part and parcel of a collier’s life. The 12 dead men were laid to rest and their families had to carry on as best they could – hopefully a son would have been old enough to follow his father down the mine and start earning a few shillings.
Many of the men were burnt but were still able to make it to the bottom of the shaft, although two men had to be carried