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	Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	14th April 1900
Colliery:	Littleburn
Company:	North Brancepeth Coal Co., Ltd.
Cause:	Shaft Accident
Lives Lost:	1
Category:

No. 147 on the list occurred at Littleburn Colliery, belonging to Messrs. The North Brancepeth Coal Co., Limited, on April 14th, and caused the death of a boy who was usually employed as a blacksmith's striker.

He was going to be down the pit all night to keep a pumping engineman company, and was told to be at the pit top at 6 o'clock to go down with the pumping engineman, but the latter had gone down at 5 o'clock to relieve the man working in the previous shift. He intended going to bank to bring the boy down, but the deceased came to the pit and asked the winding engineman to let him down, which he did. It is usual when men go down in this way on reaching the bottom to signal to the surface, so that the engineman may know that all is clear, but in this case the boy did not give the signal, and the winding engineman becoming uneasy got another man to run him down the pit, and when he got to the bottom he met the pumping engineman on his way to bring the boy down, and he informed him that he had seen nothing of the deceased. A search was at once made and the lad's body was eventually found in sump of a pumping pit. To get to where he was found he had gone through two separation doors, a 2 feet square regulator, and then fallen down the shaft, a distance of 150 yards.

The separation door is fastened with the ordinary old-fashioned screw bolt, and this was out, but whether the lad had taken it out could not be found out. The master shifter saw it fast on the day previous, and no one was supposed to have to go through afterwards.

There was a prop lying with a hole in the end of it the shape of the bolt, which showed it had on some occasion been used to open the lock.

The boy did not know the seam at all, and should not have been sent down the pit alone.

If the proper precaution had been taken of sending some one down with him, who knew the pit, this unfortunate accident would not have happened.

Source:

1900 Mines Inspectors Report (Cd 536), Durham District (No. 4) by R. D. Bain, H.M. Inspector of Mines, Page: 19 Where to find this report

	Simpson, Joseph, aged 16, Blacksmith's striker, He was going down the pit to keep a pump man company, as is always done; he got into the cage and was lowered to the Hutton Seam and got out at that level. He then went the wrong way to get to the pumping engine house; he got through two doors, and over a wall 3 ft. 6 ins, high, and fell down another shaft into the sump, a distance of 130 yards.
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