Tweet

	Individual Details		Individual Details

Age:
Died:	6th Aug 1857
Accident:	6th Aug 1857
Born:
Colliery:	Elemore
Company:
Occupation:
Notes:	head torn from his body by chain while ascending the shaft
Buried:	[not known]
Category:

No. 46 accident in the list was one of an unusual character ; prior to the introduction of cages and tubs for drawing coals out of the pits of this district, the almost universal practice was to draw them up in wicker baskets, called corves, suspended by means of iron bows or handles to hooks at the extremities of short chains, attached to the winding ropes in the pits; it being also the custom to form loops in these chains, to admit the legs of workmen in ascending and descending the pits; and although this mode of descending and ascending pits, under ordinary circumstances, is now, owing to the general introduction of tubs and cages, nearly altogether discontinued, it happened that the workmen of the Elemore Colliery still continued to use it, as they passed down and up a pit not used for the extraction of coals, in going to and coming from their work in the mine. Two old men had each one of their legs in the lowest loop of the chain attached to the ascending rope, and with two boys, similarly placed in an upper loop attached to the same rope, they were being drawn up the pit, at the same time that a similar rope with corresponding loops was descending the pit, nothing being suspended by the descending rope ; when the descending rope with its attached loops was passing the men, one of the descending empty loops appears to have had a sufficient vibration to have passed over the head of one of the men in the loop attached to the ascending rope, and to have become so completely entangled with him, as to have arrested the descent of the rope to which it was attached; which was by the progressive ascent drawn a considerable way up the pit, until the weight of the rope drawn back became sufficient to pull the poor man's head from his body, leaving the trunk and limbs to be drawn to the surface, suspended in the loop by one foot. Although a man was in attendance at the top of the pit at the time of the accident, the engine was not stopped until too late, as no alarm was given by the other old man, who was in the loop with deceased ; he being too much alarmed to call out, by reason of being himself nearly pulled out of the loop when the deceased was drawn down by the chain ; and he appears to have had considerable difficulty in saving himself from falling out. As soon as the weight of the chain and rope, lifted up by the deceased in his ascent, had become sufficient to decapitate him, its falling away so shook the descending rope that it was noticed at the surface, and the engine was then stopped, until the men at the top of the pit were told by the boys in the upper loop to draw them to the surface ; the mischief then being done.

No. 46 accident is one of an unusual nature, and almost unheard of, even at the time when the custom through which it arose was the universal practice ; and there is scarcely an instance in this district where a similar one is liable to occur, as the practice of ascending and descending pits in loops is rarely to be meet with, and is even discontinued at the Elemore Colliery, where this accident occurred, owing to the completion of arrangements involving putting cages into the pit where it happened, which were in progress at the time of the accident.

Pub. Date	Article (Newspaper)
22 Aug 1857	Horrible Fatality (Newcastle Guardian and Tyne Mercury)
22 Aug 1857	Horrible Fatality (Morpeth Herald)

• 1857 Mines Inspectors Report
• Local Records or Historical Register of Remarkable Events by John Sykes, published in 1833 in two volumes

What is your name?
What is your contact email address?
What is your research interest?