Lancashire OnLine Parish Clerk Project


	Ken Wood’s informative book published in 1984

The names of men and boys killed in accidents at Atherton collieries are presented here, from 1852 when the Mines Inspectorate started recording names consistently, to 1963 when the last fatality occurred prior to the last pit closing in 1966. The information for 1852-1913 came mostly from Kenneth Wood’s 1984 book “The Coal Pits of Chowbent”. Ken collated the information from the Inspectors of Mines Reports, and gave permission for the data to be reproduced here. To these I have added information from the Atherton cemetery burial registers (1857-1913). Also listed are the names of the Atherton men and boys who died in the Pretoria Pit disaster at Over Hulton in 1910; the details of those fatalities were given to me by Pam Clarke of Westhoughton, who extracted them from an Identification List of Victims of the Pretoria Pit Disaster, 1910, compiled by Police Sergeant William Brown, Chequerbent Police Station. Ian Winstanley kindly provided information about deaths in the 1914-1963 period from his National Database of Mining Deaths in Great Britain, and further details can be obtained directly from him.

Mine: the Lancashire word that means 'coal seam'. I have deliberately not used the word 'Mine' except in that sense, though derivative words such as 'miner' and 'mining' have their usual meaning. All the coal seams were named, but the nomenclature was extremely confusing. For instance, the Trencherbone Mine in the Atherton area was elsewhere the Wigan Six Foot Mine or the Hindley Green Five Foot Mine. Correlation of seams across the Lancashire coalfield was ever a problem.

Banksman/Browman: the man in charge at the shaft top area responsible for cage loading/unloading, signalling and controlling access to the pit.

Cage: the steel lift/elevator used to carry men, coal and materials up and down a shaft.

Collier: generally speaking, any underground worker, but more usually applied to face workers who hewed and got the coal.

Downcast & Upcast: air to ventilate the workings was drawn into the downcast shaft and exhausted air and gas was discharged through the upcast shaft.

Fireman: the man in charge of an underground district where miners worked. He was responsible for safety aspects such as ventilation and roof support.

Furnaceman: the man in charge of the ventilation furnace at the bottom of the upcast shaft.

Hooker-on: the man at the bottom of a shaft responsible for loading cages and signalling to the surface. Underground equivalent of the banksman.

Tub: a small railway wagon used to carry coal from the workings and up the shaft. Size varied, but a loaded tub typically weighed upwards of half a ton.

Underlooker: the man in charge of underground operations at a colliery. The firemen reported to the underlooker, and he to the colliery manager.

Waggoner: a person who hauled tubs/wagons along the main roadways, using pit ponies.

Mining is a dangerous occupation. Working in cramped conditions, with poor lighting, moving machinery and the ever-present danger of wall and roof collapse are bad enough, but coal mining brings its own special dangers that result from the nature and origin of the coal itself.

Firedamp Explosions
The coal seams of Lancashire were formed by the action of the Earth’s pressure and heat on buried masses of vegetation that grew in vast swamp forests over 300 million years ago. As the vegetable matter was broken down and turned to carbon, large amounts of methane gas were also generated. The gas became trapped in the myriads of fractures, cavities and pores in the coal and enclosing beds of sandstone and shale. When the coal was mined, the trapped methane was released into the workings, and was known to the colliers as firedamp. Methane forms an explosive mixture when combined with air, and gas explosions were a common cause of injury and death.

Coal Dust Explosions
The flammability of firedamp had been known for centuries, but it was not till 1894 that a Royal Commission officially recognised that coal dust itself was a powerful explosive when mixed with air. As the 19th century progressed, better ventilation, drier working conditions, greater use of explosives and mechanical coal cutters, resulted in dry powdered coal lying thick in the tunnels and workings. Even if a blast was triggered by burning firedamp it is likely that the violence of the most lethal disasters, including Pretoria, was a consequence of air-coal dust explosions propagating through the workings.

Afterdamp
A large explosion used up most of the oxygen in the air, producing afterdamp, a deadly mixture of carbon monoxide and dioxide, fatal to the miners who had survived the initial blast; gas was a contributory cause in many of the Pretoria deaths.

Roof Falls & Haulage
Large explosions were spectacular and terrible, but there was also a steady loss of life caused by stone falls from the roof and collapses of the coal face. Haulage accidents, both above and below ground, were common too; men or boys were crushed when they got in the way of the heavy tubs that carried the coal from the face to the shaft, or were caught in the haulage machinery.

This drawing from Coal and Coal Mining by W.W.Smyth (1900) was not intended as a salutary warning, but does demonstrate three of the most dangerous aspects of coal mining at the time. Note the tub in the roadway, the undercut coal face that the collier is preparing to drop, and the loose, broken state of the roof above and behind him.

Statistics
In the list of Atherton fatalities, explosions account for most deaths (35%) with roof and coal falls (32%), and haulage (25%) not far behind. However, the list is biased by the inclusion of Pretoria deaths and the 1957 Chanters blast. After removing these two disasters, the statistics show that the main cause of accidental deaths in the Atherton pits from 1852 to 1913 was rock and coal fall (38%) followed by haulage (27%) and explosions (23%). Shot-firing and cage and shaft accidents accounted for most of the remaining 12% of fatalities.

Men & Boys
Note how young many of the dead pit workers were. 22% were still in their teens, and 10% were but boys, just 10 to 15 years old. But even though they started them young down the pit, their education was not forgotten, as the book advert shows.


	They started them early! A book advertised in Crosby Lockwood & Son's list of works on Mining, Metallurgy and Colliery Working, 1900