Durham Mining Museum - Newspaper Articles

It is our painful duty to again place on record the occurrence of another dreadful coal-pit explosion in the neighbourhood of Barnsley, in addition to the one which took place on Friday, the 6th of March, 1847, at the Great Ardsley Main, generally known as the Oaks Pit, by which upwards of seventy persons lost their lives. The effect of the latter dreadful event, especially with regard to the number of fatherless children, is still felt in that neighbourhood; and, it is to be feared, with respect to the Darley Main calamity, that similar consequences, arising from death, deprivation, and affliction in its worst shapes, will be the inevitable result — so much so, indeed, as, we trust, to call into exercise the benevolence of the well-to-do in the world, and all classes who possess the means, to relieve, If possible, an extent of suffering which is truly deplorable, and cannot be, considering all circumstances, too deeply commiserated.

At noon on Wednesday week, the 24th ult., a report was circulated in Barnsley and throughout the neighbourhood that an explosion of an alarming and equally painful character had taken place in the Darley Main Colliery, in the township of Worsborough, about two miles from the first-mentioned place, the property of Messrs Jeffcock and Jarratt. In these pits several unfortunate occurrences of a similar kind have before taken place, but not of such appalling magnitude as to the number of lives which have been unfortunately sacrificed. In the year 1847 two explosions occurred in the same pit; at the first accident six persons, and at the second two persons, came by their untimely and unexpected deaths.

On visiting the scene of this dreadful disaster for the purpose of ascertaining the cause and the extent of the calamity, it was found that the worst had not, in the first instance, been told. Than the scene which was presented around, one of a more heart-rending character could scarcely be imagined. The wives, children, and relatives of the unhappy sufferers were crowded around, and could not be comforted. Their loud wailings, wringing of hands, and expressions of agonising grief, for those involved in the awful catastrophe, were heard in all directions, and fall upon the ear with awful impressiveness. The removal of the dead and the dying to their respective homes, or the places more immediately at hand, presented a truly mournful spectacle. In some instances, the certainty of death, rendered more appalling by the blackened corpses, told an awful and overwhelming tale. In others, hope appeared to have almost vanished, and the worst consequences, surrounded by the scorched bodies, were dreaded, notwithstanding the manifestation of every possible care and solicitude to render all available assistance to the unfortunate and pitiable sufferers.

The number of sufferers who were rescued from the scene of destruction up to ten o'clock on Wednesday was twenty, but in consequence of the difficulty in ascertaining number of hands in the pit at the time of the accident, all was doubt and uncertainty until Thursday morning, when vigilant measures were taken for repairing the different parts of the pit which had been blown down, and for this purpose a number of masons were at once employed to brick up the different broken compartments, within which numbers of poor fellows were securely embedded among the mutilated mass of earthwork. This having been partially effected, a number of men proceeded down the shaft, and commenced carrying the bodies to the mouth of the pit, from whence they were sent up to the surface at intervals, where a crowd of persons awaited their being landed in a state of breathless anxiety. The majority of the sufferers were fearfully mutilated, so much so that it was totally impossible for many of the relatives to recognise the mangled corpses, unless by some peculiarity of deceased's dress. Nearly all the bodies last brought out were dreadfully mangled, and in several instances the head literally scalped, the hair burnt off, and the viscera obtruding from the lower portion of the body. A more horrible scene could not possibly be conceived, and as cart-loads one after another were taken away to surrounding houses, numbers of maddened and anxious parents and wives ran after the vehicles and threw on one side the blankets, in the dreadful anticipation of recognising some one dear to them. This scene of horrid suspense continued throughout the early part of the day, and at three o'clock there only remained three bodies undiscovered and these were expected to be found on further masonry being thrown up in the back portion, or what is technically called the "dip," or lower end of the pit. From later inquiries we learn that the number of hands, of all descriptions, in the pit, at the time of the accident, was from 107 to 110. Of these, twenty-seven were got out alive on Wednesday evening, three of whom afterwards died. The bodies which could not be reached the same evening were, of course, quite dead when they were approached on Thursday, and from a careful analysis of the whole, we find that the total number killed is 82. Of the twenty-four parties who survive, we learn that the major portion have not sustained any serious injury, and that all, with some one or two exceptions, are expected to survive the injuries they have received.

Worsbro' Dale, Friday afternoon. — The coroner of the district, Mr. Thomas Badger, opened the inquest upon the bodies of the sufferers at the Mason's Arms, Worsbro' Dale, at eleven o'clock this morning, before a highly respectable jury composed of 18 residents of the vicinity, in consequence of the arrangements not being complete for conveying the jury to the places where the bodies were lying, two witnesses (William Broadhead, an engine tender, and James Armitage, a collier) were first examined. The jury proceeded in an omnibus to the places where the deceased lay. So numerous and widely extended were they, that the surgeon, Mr. Ayr, stated that in his opinion this preliminary duty would occupy the whole of the day, and the greater part of Saturday. At the adjourned inquest on Saturday, it appeared, from the evidence of several of the survivors, that the ventilation of the pit has long notoriously been in a very bad state, the coal having been got very irregularly, and large holes left, in which accumulations of foul air were inevitable, no current ever reaching them. Other of the witnesses did not think any one was to blame. Six of the survivors are very seriously injured. The wives and orphans of such of the deceased as were married are very numerous, and the whole district is filled with mourners. A subscription is about to be commenced for the bereaved, who, by this catastrophe, have almost without exception been plunged into the depths of destitution. The inquiry was again adjourned.