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The William Pit is one of three mines owned by the Cumberland Coal Co. (Whitehaven), Ltd., the others being the Wellington and Haig Pits. They are all sunk close to the seashore on the confines of the town and port of Whitehaven to work the undersea coal of the Cumberland Coalfield.

At the William Pit, which is situated about one furlong north of the L.M.S. Railway Station, there are two shafts dating from the early years of the 19th century, viz.: the downcast, 12 feet in diameter, which is the winding shaft, and the upcast, 13 feet in diameter, which is used solely for ventilation purposes. There are, however, three other available means of egress to the surface, viz., Wellington Pit, Haig Pit and a day drift from workings of the Haig Pit. These outlets can be reached by a communication road from William Pit workings as shown on Plate No. 1, which is a plan on a small scale showing the William Pit, the general scheme of ventilation, omitting, however, the details of subsidiary air doors and brattice sheets, and the outline of an extensive area of abandoned workings in the Main Band seam. Superimposed thereon are the workings in the Bannock Band seam, which were in progress at the time of the explosion. This Plate also shows the places where the victims were at the time of the explosion, subject to the possibility that some of them may have moved between the moment of the explosion and the time when either death or immobility overtook them.

In addition to this Plate, three other Plates accompany this Report, as follows :–

Plate No. 2. – A plan on a large scale showing the Main Band workings in the Lowca area and outbye as far as the Humbug Doors.

Plate No. 3. – Details in plan and section of the series of stoppings built in the Main Band pillars near to and slightly inbye of Lowca Junction.

Plate No. 4. – A section of the strata at Lowca Junction and showing the cross measure drift from the Main Band to the Bannock Band Seam.

The shafts were originally sunk to the Six Quarter Seam at a depth of 297 yards, but after a time the lower length of the shafts was abandoned, and winding has since been carried on from an inset 10 yards below the Main Band Seam which is intersected at a depth of 208 yards.

The mine was acquired by the present owners in March, 1937, previous to which it had been idle for two years.

Seams worked and method of working. – Three seams have been worked, the two already mentioned and the Bannock Band which lies 50 yards above the Main Band. Of these, in the past, as reference to Plate No. 1 will show, only the Main Band has been extensively worked: No further reference to workings in the Six Quarters Seam will be made, since they do not affect the matter at issue.

The Main Band is a thick seam averaging about 10 feet of almost clean coal (see Section on Plate No. 3). The method of working was bord and pillar, but as reference to Plate No. 2 will show, although there has been much splitting and robbing of pillars, there has been little broken working. Generally, the pillars have been left standing at their original dimensions of, on a rough average, 20 yards square.

In the area with which this report is concerned there are two patches of workings in the Bannock Band. One to the south of the Lowca Junction, is known as the Delaval Bannock District. A few roadside pillars were being worked out in this district (see Plate No. 1), and but for the fact that roadways in the district served as return airways for the second and newer Bannock Band District, no reference need have been made to this district. The newer Countess Bannock District was opened in 1933 by driving a drift 330 yards long, rising at 1 in 8, from a point in the main haulage road about 25 yards inbye of Lowca Junction and vertically above the old Main Band roadway (see Plate No. 3). A second drift, the Countess Bannock Back Drift, was driven from a roadway in the Main Band pillars to the north of the Main road to provide the return airway from this district (see Plate No. 2). More recently a second return airway, the Countess Bannock New Back Drift, was driven from the Delaval Level near Lowca Junction to provide a separate split for the workings on the south side of the main level in Countess Bannock District.

Haulage lay-out. – The main intake airway from the downcast shaft was the main haulage road to Lowca Junction. Originally its gradient was irregular, being subject to varying inclinations in the seam itself and also to displacements vertically where faults were crossed. About the year 1908 a new road was set out at an even gradient from the down cast shaft to Lowca Junction, and this permitted endless rope haulage in one reach between these two points. Incidentally, the new road over the greater part of its total length of upwards of 4,000 yards is in the stone below the seam, thus minimising leakage of air through connexions between the intake and the return airways. Haulage from the Countess Bannock District to the Lowca terminus of the main haulage road was by a subsidiary endless rope driven by an electric motor installed immediately above the haulage road near the bottom of the incline.

Ventilation. – At the time of the explosion all the intake air passed through Lowca Junction. There was leakage into the returns through the doors in the Lowca and Delaval levels, and also into the stopping area of Main Band pillars immediately under and in the neighbourhood of the Countess Bannock Drift. Actually, according to a measurement taken in the drift on 30th May, 1941, 38,000 cubic feet of air per minute were passing up the drift. Attempts to measure the quantity of air escaping to the return by leakage through the Main Band pillars about Lowca Junction were abortive.

Persons employed and output. – At the time of the accident about 430 persons were employed underground and 114 on the surface in producing an output of about 650 tons per day on an average.

Supervision. – Supervision was exercised by an agent, Mr. J. Williamson, who was also general manager of all the three mines, and a manager, Mr. G. Farquhar, who had under him two overmen on each of the day and afternoon shifts and one overman on the night shift. At the time of the explosion for the normal working of the mine there were 19 deputies distributed over three shifts. In addition there were three more deputies, two on the day shift and one on the afternoon shift, whose duties were confined solely to inspections of and to the supervision of persons working at gob-fire stoppings.

In the next succeeding section of this report it will emerge that in December, 1938, trouble arose owing to the presence of carbon monoxide in that portion of the return airway from the Countess Bannock District, which had passed old workings of the Main Band (see Plate No. 2). It early became evident that additional and special supervision was desirable to deal with the trouble. Accordingly, Mr. A. B. Dawson, who was at that time in charge of the surveying and planning department of the Whitehaven Collieries, was specially detailed for that duty. Mr. Dawson, who is the holder of a First Class Certificate under the Coal Mines Act, 1911, was manager of the William Pit for several years at one period of his mining career, which started in 1911, and has been limited almost entirely to the Whitehaven Collieries.

As gob-fire supervisor he had no immediate responsibilities under the Coal Mines Act, 1911, but he was in charge of all operations in connexion with gob fires from the first indication of the trouble in December, 1938, until the end, working all the time, however, in close collaboration with the agent and the manager. He had under him two practically full-time deputies on the day shift and one on the afternoon shift, together with a considerable staff of workmen who rarely numbered less than 20 and at times more than 100, the larger number being employed on the stoppings when normal pit production happened to be interrupted. It may be observed here, in passing, that this appointment merits commendation, for Mr. Dawson had had a unique experience of the Main Band workings, both in the William Pit and the other pits of the Colliery. His notes and records of the course of events from December, 1938, right up to the day of the explosion were carefully compiled and contained a host of detail which made his evidence at the Inquiry almost invaluable.