Tweet

The Whitehaven Collieries are situated on the outskirts of the town of Whitehaven in the county of Cumberland, and close to the sea shore. The present owners are the Whitehaven Colliery Company, Limited, who acquired the property in 1913. The collieries comprise four mines, viz., the Wellington, William, Ladysmith, and Haig Pits, the relative positions of the pits being shown on Plan No. 1.

Owing to the great distance of the workings from the shaft — over four miles — a scheme was formulated to reorganise the ventilation of the Wellington Pit, and the Haig Pits were the outcome. The Haig shafts were sunk with the intention that they should eventually replace the present Wellington shafts, and drifts to connect with the Wellington workings are in course of being driven.

The sinking of Haig No. 5 pit was commenced in August, 1914, and it was completed in May, 1916; No. 4 pit was commenced in October, 1916, and completed in March, 1918. They are 40 yards apart. No. 5 pit is 21 feet in diameter, and No. 4 pit 18 feet in diameter, and both are walled throughout. The shafts are situated 720 yards in a south-westerly direction from the Wellington Pits and are 300 yards from high water mark.

In order to avoid old workings in the Six Quarters Seam (driven from the old Saltom Pit) which contained water, the Haig shafts were sunk to a depth of 40 fathoms below the Six Quarters Seam, making the total depth of No. 5 pit 200 fathoms, and of No. 4 pit 191 fathoms. The winding level is at 189 fathoms and the shafts are designed to raise 3,000 tons of coal per day, though the quantity raised at the present stage of development was stated to be about 250 tons per day.

Management. — The whole of the mines are under the supervision of an agent and works manager, Mr. R. Steel. Separate managers are appointed for the Ladysmith and William Pits, but the Wellington and Haig Pits are under the charge of one manager, Mr. A. Kilpatrick. There are also under-managers with 2nd class certificates at each pit, Mr. A. Millar being the under-manager of the Haig Pit.

Persons Employed and Organisation of Shifts. — Prior to the explosion, a total of 245 persons was employed at the Haig Pit, including 192 underground and 53 on the surface.

The mine was worked by three shifts of workmen, whose times of descent and ascent were fixed by the manager as follows

	Times of
Shift.	Descent.		Ascent.
Night	9.45 to	10.00 p.m.	5.00 to	5.15 a.m.
Day	5.00 to	5.15 a.m.	12.15 to	12.30 p.m.
Back	12.15 to	12.30 p.m.	7.30 to	7.45 p.m.

It will be seen, therefore, that workmen were underground continuously, except for the period from 7.30-7.45 p.m. to 9.45-10:0 p.m.

The deputies were also arranged in three shifts, their hours of descent and ascent being as follows :—

	Times of
Shift.	Descent.	Ascent.
Night	8.30 p.m. 9.00 p.m.	4.30 a.m.
Day	4.30 a.m.	11.30 a.m. 12.00 noon
Back	11.30 p.m. 12.00 noon	6.30 p.m. 7.30 p.m.

The Haig Pit was divided into two deputies' districts, named respectively the North District and the South-West District, while for the purposes of inspection the drifts in course of being driven constituted a separate district. For the North and South-West Districts there were six deputies, two on each shift, and in the North District there was in addition an authorised shot-firer, who descended at 7 a.m. and ascended, as a rule, at 3 p.m., thus overlapping into both the day shift and the back shift.

Here it must be mentioned that on the 24th August one of the deputies in the North District went on holiday, and from that date up to the morning of the explosion the two remaining deputies worked his shift between them. Thus these two men were each working 12-hour shifts, instead of the 8 hours fixed as the normal maximum under the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1908, and Coal Mines Act, 1919. I refer to this matter again at a later stage of this Report (vide page 29).

The number of workmen normally employed below ground in each district was :—

		Night  Shift	Day  Shift	Back  Shift
North District	Hewers  Shifters	6  9	33  8	30  3
South West District	Hewers  Shifters	—  —	13  2	16  —
Drifts District - Drifters		16	23	16
Hualage plane and shafts		3	10	4
	Total	34	89	69

The total number of persons below ground in the mine on the morning of the 5th September when the accident occurred was 82, of whom 39 were in the North District to which the explosion was confined.

Surface Arrangements. — The permanent winding engine is fixed at No, 4 shaft, which is used for coal drawing. At No, 5 shaft the permanent engine is nearly completed, but the engine used for sinking this shaft forms an emergency winding engine. The permanent headgears of steel are completed at both shafts. A small screening plant is temporarily in use.

Pending the completion of the ventilation scheme for the Haig and Wellington Pits, Haig No. 4 shaft is used as a downcast and No, 5 shaft is temporarily converted into an upcast. A 60-inch single inlet Sirocco fan electrically driven is erected on the surface and is drawing 48,555 cubic feet of air per minute at a water gauge of 2.4 inches through the local workings of the Haig Pit. The fan is fitted with arrangements for reversing the air current.

An ambulance room, a lamp room, stores and offices are provided but are at present of a temporary nature, pending the completion of plans for the permanent structures.

Searching and Checking of Workmen. — Each workman is provided with a numbered token, and unless he produces this token no lamp is issued to him without a written authorisation from the Manager. Each man on proceeding to his work hands in his token at the lamp cabin and a lamp bearing the same number is issued to him. When he returns to the surface after completing his shift and hands back the lamp, his token is restored to him.

No special system of searching workmen for prohibited articles before proceeding underground had been approved by the Inspector of the Division, and therefore all persons had to be searched. The search was carried out by the onsetter, but as it was stated in evidence that he had to search some 80 persons in 15 minutes, I have grave doubts as to its thoroughness. Indeed it was brought out in the course of the Inquiry that a match and a cigarette had been found underground, and, as already mentioned, the jury thought fit to express their opinion that a stricter method of searching should be adopted in future. This will be discussed later on. (Vide page 30.)