‘They’re all dead’ he whispered to the Mercury
ON Tuesday, April 19, 1898, 42 miners went down Whitwick’s No 5 pit shaft for the night shift.
Just seven would come out alive in the worst accident in the history of the Leicestershire coalfield.
Before the start of that fateful night shift, miners coming back to the surface remarked on how warm it felt underground.
One even noticed a strong smell. And although safety regulations were slack compared to today’s standards, Whitwick Colliery was regarded as one of the safest.
The workings, compared to collieries in Yorkshire and South Wales for example, were not considered prone to underground fires. Pit men even worked by candlelight because the threat of gas was so small.
The number 5 shaft at Whitwick
Colliery had been closed for economic reasons but reopened in 1885. The 13 years between 1885 and 1898 passed without incident.
So when, at 2.30am, deputy Joseph Limb detected smoke he thought it was his young lackey John Albert Gee smoking.
It wasn’t. It was a gob fire - an underground blaze of disused material - which may have been burning for months. On April 19, 1898, it blew out of control.
The smoke in the main intake grew thicker and the deputy, realising something was wrong, ordered all the men out - at once.
The gob fire spread to the wooden support timbers and then the roof, according to reports, began raining fire. Inevitably, the roof collapsed trapping 35 men. They suffocated and died entombed in the shaft.
At the pit top, hundreds of people gathered. A report in the Leicester Mercury a day after the fire recalls women sobbing “as though their hearts were going to break”.
Thousands congregated at the colliery as the days passed, joining
enthusiasm, this project would not have come to fruition.”
The memorial comes on the back of other tributes in the area, with David Wilson Homes having previously named all of its 19 streets in the Grange Road development after the 19 families affected by the disaster.
“It’s been an honour working with our partners to make this memorial at our Grange View development possible,” said John Reddington, managing director at David Wilson Homes East Midlands.
“We’d like to thank everyone involved for their hard work and the recent unveiling event was a fantastic tribute to a major part of Leicestershire’s history.”
After the completion of the Grange View development, the monument’s long-term care and maintenance will be passed to Hugglescote and Donington Le Heath Parish Council.