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| Date: | 26th May 1902 |
| Colliery: | Deaf Hill |
| Company: | Trimdon Coal Co. |
| Cause: | (See description below) |
| Lives Lost: | 1 |
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| Description | |
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No. 185 on the list occurred at Deaf Hill Colliery, belonging to Messrs. The Trimdon Coal Co., on May 26th, and caused the death of a Coal Hewer, and serious personal injury to eleven others.
At this Colliery the down cast shaft is 162 fathoms deep to the Harvey seam, and is divided into three by wood brattice — one side is used for pumping, another for coal drawing and third has nothing in it. The winding engine is a double horizontal engine with 32 inch cylinders, and 6 feet stroke. The drum is 16 feet diameter and is driven direct by a crank. The cages have three decks and carry four men in each deck.
On the morning of the day in question the foreshift men were being sent down the shaft. The deceased and eleven other men got in and were lowered down quite safely — and so steadily that some of the men in the cage remarked "how steadily the brakesman is letting us down" — until the cage was within a short distance of the bottom, when it suddenly rushed away and went onto the bottom with such force that one man was thrown out onto the flat sheets and killed. The other men were all more or less seriously injured, but ultimately recovered.
The ascending cage was taken up to the pulley, but held by the detaching hook.
The accident was caused by some mistake made by the engineman.
He was a man of 22 years' experience with all classes of winding engines, and possesses a certificate of competency from the Durham Engineman's Association. His own explanation was that he was running the engine very steadily till the last stroke, when he was rather slow in getting the reversing handle over to put a little steam against the engine in order to stop it.
I think it is very probable that he had put the steam on before he got the reversing handle over, and in that case, he would, instead of putting it against the engine, be helping it ; and this would account for the sudden rush the cage went away with just before it reached the bottom.
| Source: | 1902 Mines Inspectors Report (Cd 1590) Where to find this report |
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| Fatalities | |
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 | Marley, Robert, aged 36, Hewer, he and other 11 men were being let down the shaft in the cage, and when near the bottom the winding engineman did not stop the cage and it went hard on the keps, and deceased was thrown out and crushed between the cage and flat sheets ; the other men were all more or less injured ; the ascending cage was overwound, but the detaching hook caught it, Buried: St. Paul's Churchyard, Trimdon Station |
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