Tweet

Louisa (including Morrison Old) Colliery was formerly in the South Moor group of collieries belonging to the Holmside and South Moor Collieries Limited and is now in the "C" Group of No. 6 Area of the Northern Division of the National Coal Board. It is situated at South Moor, near Stanley, in North West Durham, and works the middle series of Durham seams, the Maudlin, Low Main and Hutton, in an area bounded on the West by the outcrop of these seams in the Lanchester district.

The upper seams in the same royalty, namely the Shield Row, Five Quarter and Main Coal, are worked from Hedley Colliery and both mines have a common centrally situated upcast shaft, Charley Fan Shaft, where an electrically driven Sirocco fan producing 175,000 cubic feet of air per minute at 2¼ inches water gauge is situated.

The lower seams in the same area, namely the Towneley, Busty and Brockwell, are worked from Morrison Busty Colliery, which is a separate mine in the same group with its own upcast shaft and fan.

Louisa Colliery is served by three downcast shafts : Louisa, William and Morrison North, and employs in all 1,480 persons underground and 350 on the surface for an average daily output of 1,450 tons. All the output is wound at Louisa shaft apart from a certain amount of overflow coal at Morrison North shaft.

General Supervision. Many changes in the principal officials had been brought about following public ownership of the mines from 1st January last, and on 22nd August, the day of the explosion, they were comprised as follows :-

Mr. Wm. Welsh		No. 6 Area General Manager
Mr. G. H. Braithwaite		Agent, "C" Group
Mr. J. F. Meek		Manager, Louisa Colliery
Mr. R. Peel		Undermanager of Louisa and William Sections of Louisa Colliery
Mr. R. Simpson		Undermanager of Morrison North. Section of Louisa Colliery

A third undermanager, Mr. E. W. Marshall, who was normally in charge of William Section and had been temporarily withdrawn to act as manager of another mine in the group, had acted as manager during the month of July, 1947, prior to which Mr. J. E. Bragan had been manager for four years; and Mr. Meek had been in charge from 1st August only.

Mr. Wm. Welsh was formerly chief mining engineer for the South Moor group: he was trained at these collieries and was manager at Louisa Colliery for some years, and he has an intimate and detailed knowledge of the underground workings and conditions. Mr. Braithwaite was appointed agent on 1st March last. Messrs. Marshall, Peel and Simpson had also been employed in the South Moor group for some years.

Each section of the colliery had its own complement of overmen covering the period from 3 a.m. to 11.30 p.m. daily, and the uncovered period of the night shift was under the sole charge of a master-shifter whose hours were from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. On the Friday night in question, however, the fore shift overman, John Hutchinson, of the Louisa Section, had commenced his Saturday shift at 12 midnight in accordance with established routine, and he took an important part in the rescue operations, as will be described later.

Safety Lamps. Apart from the use of safety lamps as a precautionary measure inbye in certain districts (for a reason now unknown) in the Low Main and Hutton Seams, open lights were used up to 1941 in all seams down to and including the Hutton. During that year, following a suggestion by the then Divisional Inspector, who had drawn attention to the fact that workmen were hiding matches and other contraband on a main intake haulage road serving one of the safety lamp sections and had pointed out the fire hazard (a serious fire in the Low Main Seam in 1929 had been caused by an acetylene lamp), the Chief Mining Engineer, Mr. Wm. Welsh, decided to install safety lamps throughout the Louisa Old and William sections, excluding the Morrison North section of shallow work under more or less wet conditions approaching the outcrop. The full implications of safety lamps were accepted in these two areas in respect of searching persons, the application of Part II of the principal Explosives in Coal Mines Order, and the use of certified flame proof electrical apparatus and firedamp detectors.

It should be stated here that the 4th North District, which is within half a mile of the Morrison North shaft and over 1½ miles from Louisa shaft, was formerly in the open light area of Morrison North, but in order to meet the workmen's claim that this district should be included in the Louisa Workmen's Lodge, it was placed under the jurisdiction of the Louisa Undermanager and worked with safety lamps.

Hutton Seam. The seam at this colliery averages 2½ ft. in thickness, with a strong shale roof and a seggar floor. It has a volatile matter content on an ash-free dry basis of 33.7 per cent. and yields a high quality gas coal. It has been worked very extensively and little remains to be extracted in the royalty. The 4th North District comprises a small area of the seam sterilised by a fire in 1929 in the Low Main Seam lying 30 ft. above, which had necessitated the sealing off of a pillared area of about 100 acres in this upper seam. During 1944 the fire area was entered and new seals were erected nearer to the locus of the old fire. This made available for working the area of Hutton seam referred to above and the lower seams under the area to be worked from Morrison Busty Colliery. Plan No. 1 shows the position of the sealed area in relation to the 4th North District. There is no record of inflammable gas having been found in the seam prior to this explosion.