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	Individual Details		Individual Details

Age:	55
Died:	29th Dec 1907
Accident:	18th Dec 1907
Year Born:	abt. 1852
Colliery:	Hazlerigg
Company:
Occupation:	Hewer
Notes:	explosion of firedamp
Buried:	St. Nicholas Churchyard, Gosforth
Category:

This explosion of fire-damp occurred at 8:20 a.m. on Wednesday, 18th December, 1907 in the Champion district of Longwall workings in the Yard seam shown on Plate I.

Two hewers were burned, one of whom died from his injuries on December 29th.

The district lies at a depth of 62 fathoms from the surface and at a distance of 1,550 yards from the shafts. It is approached across a rise trouble from the High Main seam.

The coal is about 3 feet thick and is overlaid by blue metal or shale with post girdles, the district is worked with locked safety lamps of the Marsaut type, with two gauzes. Gunpowder was used in the coal and saxonite in the stone in shooting down top canches in the gateways. The coal shots were fired by squib and the stone shots by battery, by or in the presence of, the deputy of shot firers.

The course of the air is shown on the plan. There practically no coal dust in the district, the general conditions being damp.

Fire-damp had been seen in the district before the explosion and two men had been burned by an ignition of gas on May 23rd. See list of non-fatal explosions. This occurred about the point D on plan.

The deputies had reported all safe the day before the explosion and on that day the Local Inspectors had, in the ordinary course of their quarterly inspection, been round the district and made the following report :-

17th December 1907.

We the undersigned, have examined the returns and roadways and working places in High Main, Yard seam and Main Coal and find them in a satisfactory condition except canches left very bad in Champion Yard seam.

The remark as to the canches being "left very bad" meant that they were not shot in sufficiently close to the face, thereby inconveniencing the hewers in filling the tubs and did not mean that there was any danger. Extra stonemen were sent into the district the same night to remedy the matter.

During the evening of the 17th December a fall of roof stone, about 19 yards long, said to be due to a first break, took place along the face and cut off two gateways. The master shifter, who was in the district from 10:15 p.m. to 11:45 p.m., had his attention called to it and found that from 3½ to 4 feet of the roof stone had fallen along the line of a well defined jack or fissure in the strata. He made an examination for gas but found none.

The fore shift deputy made his examination, before the entry of the hewers, about 3 a.m., he saw a fall had taken place and stated at the inquest that he examined the cavity it had left, so far as he was able, and found no gas. The deputy stated the fall had not obstructed the ventilation.

He made a written report to the effect that all was safe and in it he made no mention of the fall of roof, as he should have done.

He met his men at the station about 4 a.m. and they proceeded to their work and he commenced his second round and in the course of it he visited the gateway in which deceased and the injured man worked, about 8.5 a.m., and while he was there four shots were fired in the coal ; he left them for the men at the other end of the fall and here he first fired two shots in the coal at the face of the cross heading and then two in the gateway just turned away to the left of it. The shots in the new gateway were one in the bottom of the seam in a hole 2 feet 4 inches deep, which was fired without mishap, and one directly above in the top of the seam which apparently caused the explosion.

This hole was 2½ feet deep and started about 5 inches from the roof, and was drilled so as to catch the roof at the back. It was inclined to the line of the face at an angle of about 45 degrees as shown on the plan, and was opposite the pack on the right side of the road and was several feet from the face of the top canch. It was stated to contain a bobbin, or half a cartridge, of compressed gunpowder, equal to 1/5-lb., and to be stemmed with clay, and was fired about two minutes after the shot below it. It was fired by a squib with a touch paper end, and it appeared that the practice was to unroll the touch paper and tear part of it off, this torn part the deputy ignited by means of a wire heated by being put through the gauze of his safety lamp, and the hewer then ignited the touch paper left on the squib by means of the torn off touch paper. The deputy stated he examined, in accordance with the requirements of General Rule 12, immediately before lighting the first of the two shots and also after its explosion and found no gas. When the second shot exploded the deputy stood some 7 or 8 yards away at the entrance to the gateway at A, and the two hewers who worked in the place a few yards further out in the cross gateway at B. Immediately after the second shot exploded a rumbling sound was heard, but none of the men near it were injured or saw any flame, nor were their safety lamps extinguished although they felt a concussion in the air.

The flame seems to have passed along the face over the fall to where deceased and the injured man were working at C, they were both burned and their safety lamps were extinguished. The deputy went to them at once and they were assisted to put their clothes on but went out-bye alone. The safety lamps used by the injured men were examined by the lampman after the explosion and found to be in safe working order.

The shot had done its work in blowing down the coal and was not blown out.

There was nothing unusual in the meteorological conditions, the barometer falling regularly according to a barogragh in my house six miles from the collieries, from 29.85 inches at noon on the 17th to 29.65 inches at noon on the 18th December.

The deputy stated at the inquest that deceased, when working in a damp or wet place, was in the habit of wrapping the compressed gunpowder in greased paper before placing it in the shot hole in order to keep it dry, and that he had cautioned him against the practice as he had known the paper to be ignited and blown out of the hole, and he suggested that one of the shots in deceased’s place had been so protected and that the greased paper had been blown flaming into the pack wall and had remained burning until the explosion ; the concussion of the subsequently fired shots disturbing fire-damp and bringing it in contact with this flame. The deputy, however, could bring no evidence in support of this theory.

The Local Inspectors made another inspection about 9 a.m. on the day following the explosion and reported :-

We, the undersigned, have examined place and places adjoining where explosion occurred. We found ventilation good. We did not find any gas, but we found that two places had closed after our inspection on the 17th inst., but these had been attended to and air way made through both, and consider it satisfactory.

When I examined the district on the day after the explosion I found gas in the cavity left by the fall in the gateway to the left of where the shot causing the explosion was fired, and gas was seen after the explosion in the vicinity up to the 30th December.

Since the explosion, gunpowder for blasting coal has been replaced by saxonite fired by battery.

The explosion caused no damage to the workings, and may have been due to :-

1. Flame from the shot.

2. Flame from burning paper left from previous shots.

3. Concussion from the last shot causing a wave of air which led to the ignition of the fire-damp at one of the safety lamps of the injured men.

As already stated there was no evidence in support of (2). The fact that the persons nearest the shot were not burned lends some probability to (3) as against (1) ; but on the whole I think gas was present next the roof near the shot, and was ignited by flame from it, and flame then passed along the cavity left by the fall.

• 1907 Mines Inspectors Report (Cd 4045), Newcastle District (No. 3) by J. B. Atkinson, H.M. Inspector of Mines, Page: 10 Where to find this report
• 1907 Mines Inspectors Report (Cd 4045), Newcastle District (No. 3) by J. B. Atkinson, H.M. Inspector of Mines, Page: 34, Accident Number: 105 Where to find this report

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