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11 Old Square, Lincoln's Inn,

June 29th, 1885.

Sir,

I have to inform you that, acting upon the instructions of the Solicitor to Her Majesty's Treasury, I attended on the 24th of June 1885 at the adjourned inquest held upon the bodies of the 13 men who were killed in the Maudlin Seam of the Margaret Pit, Newbottle, in the county of Durham, on the 3rd June 1885.

My instructions were to watch the proceedings on behalf of the Crown in concert with Mr. Bell, Her Majesty's Inspector of Mines for the district, and to assist him in eliciting the real facts of the case and the true causes of the accident. I was also directed on the conclusion of the inquest to send a report to the Secretary of State, containing a brief narrative of the case, and specifying whether in my opinion a prosecution should be instituted against any person, and whom and on what grounds. I accordingly took part in the examination of all the witnesses who gave evidence at the adjourned inquest. The facts of the case were simple and undisputed. The Earl of Durham, who is the owner of the Margaret Pit, was working amongst other seams that which is known as the Maudlin Seam, and it was in the Maudlin Seam that the accident took place. A complete working plan of that seam was kept, and produced at the inquest. It appears that the Margaret Pit is in the immediate neighbourhood of a pit known as the Elizabeth Pit, which had been abandoned and built up in the year 1830. The old working plan of the Elizabeth Pit, showing the workings in the Maudlin Seam prior to the year 1830, was also produced at the inquest. The officials in charge of the Margaret Pit were well aware of the fact that the Maudlin Seam in the Margaret Pit was being worked in the direction of the disused workings of the same seam in the Elizabeth Pit. They therefore caused a survey to be made, and had the old plan of the workings of the Maudlin Seam in the Elizabeth Pit reproduced from actual measurement upon the present working plan of the Maudlin Seam in the Margaret pit. I append a copy of the last mentioned plan so far as ir material for the present narrative. The accident took place at the end of the sixth gateway in the workings of the Maudlin Seam of the Margaret Pit, at the place shown on the plan as the "point of holing," and it was caused by the men working in the said sixth gateway "holing" or breaking into the disused workings of the Elizabeth Pit. The result of the holing was to release the noxious gas stored up in the Elizabeth Pit, and it was this gas, and not the water which followed it, that caused the deaths of the men in question. It was abundantly proved at the inquest that the accident was caused by holing at the point in question, and that death was caused by the noxious gas release by the holing. The witnesses were specially examined by Mr. Bell and myself for the purpose of ascertaining whether there was any negligence on the part of the officials of the Margaret Pit. The officials had every confidence in the accuracy of the old working plan of the Maudlin Seam in the Elizabeth Pit, not only from the fact that the old plans of disused collieries in the neighbourhood had always been found to the perfectly reliable, but especially from the fact that the old working plan of the Hutton Seam (which is below the Maudlin) of the Elizabeth Pit, which was relied upon in working the Hutton Seam of the Margaret Pit, was found to be absolutely correct. The face of the working at the point of holing had been repeatedly examined, and was in fact examined by the proper officials less than one hour before the accident.