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	Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	23rd September 1901
Colliery:	Dawdon
Company:	Londonderry Collieries Ltd.
Cause:	(See description below)
Lives Lost:	1
Category:

No. 317 on the list occurred at Dawdon Colliery, belonging to the Londonderry Collieries. Ltd., on September 23rd, and caused the death of a sinker.

Seventeen men were on a cradle, wedging some tubbing that had been put into one of the two shafts being sunk at this colliery.

The cradle was hung on six chains, made fast to the tubbing, and, to enable the men to wedge a lower ring, it became necessary to lower it; this was being done by means of an engine placed on the surface. One side had been lowered and made fast to the chains at that side, and the other was being lifted, in order to loose the chains, when the felloe or outer ring of the cradle broke, and three of the men on it fell into the shaft into about 20 feet of water, nine feet below.

Two were recovered at once, little worse for their immersion, but the third, unfortunately, was drowned, and his body was not got for two-and-a-half hours. He probably, had been stunned in falling by striking the cradle or one of the pumps in the shaft.

The felloe, which had been in use for about eight months, was made of oak, seven inches square, and this should have given a large margin of safety. The wood, on being inspected after the accident occurred, was found to be short in fibre, but quite sound, and it is difficult to account for its breaking in the way it did. It may have had a strain some time previously, but there is no evidence that it has ever had more than the ordinary working strain upon it.

Since the accident it has been greatly strengthened by placing an iron band 4 ins. by 1 in. inside the felloe.

The requirements of the Acts and Special Rules, as to examinations being made and recorded in a book kept at the mine for the purpose were, I believe, carefully carried out and altogether the occurrence appears to have been an accidental one, but I should like to draw the attention of all who are in charge of, or working in, sinking shafts, to it, as it shews the necessity of the greatest care being used in examining cradles and everything in use to detect weak places.

Source:

1901 Mines Inspectors Report (Cd 1062), Durham District (No. 4) by R. D. Bain, H.M. Inspector of Mines, Page: 20 Where to find this report

	Douglas, Thomas, aged 26, Sinker, the scaffold on which he was working broke and he fell into sump and was drowned
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