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	Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	6th September 1860
Colliery:	Wombwell Main
Company:	Wombwell Main Coal Co.
Cause:	Boiler bursting
Lives Lost:	1
Category:

Accident No. 26 in the Tabular List.

Boiler bursting at Wombwell Main Colliery, near Barnsley.

Eight engines were here supplied with steam from six boilers, one of which blew up with tremendous force on the morning of September 6, 1860, tore open a great portion of its upper surface, displaced an adjoining boiler, smashed the pipes, knocked down two inner walls and one outer wall of the boiler-house, lifted the slated roof into the air, severely scalded the enginewright (Charles Oxley), and caused the death of the stoker (William Batty).

The steam-gauges, safety-valves, water-gauges, floats, and feed-pumps, had been previously tried and pronounced right ; and the observed pressure was about 30 pounds per square inch, at which pressure the steam commonly escaped.

The boiler was cylindrical, and 7½ feet diameter ; it contained two cylindrical tubes (each 2½ feet diameter) running lengthwise in its lower part ; it was well made originally of Milton iron plates seven-sixteenths of an inch thick ; it had been in use four years, and was newly bottomed two years ago.

Latterly the boiler had got into bad repair ; there were two or three leaky places in it ; both water and steam were with difficulty kept up ; one of its side plates had become worn, corroded, and thin ; and owing to a general deficiency of boiler-room on the premises, the internal examination and cleaning of this individual boiler had been delayed six weeks instead of (according to special rule) two weeks. The fatal fracture began at one of the longitudinal rivetting joints hidden by the brick work ; and tearing violently across the solid plates, ripped up nearly half the circumference of the boiler, leaving the shape of the tubes unaltered.

The thickness of the plate in which the fracture commenced was only two-sixteenths of an inch ; and if the quality of the iron had not been good, it could not have borne for so long a time the pressure to which it had been subjected.

The enginewright complained at the coroner's inquest that the number of boilers was inadequate for the engine power at work ; and that he was thereby precluded from emptying, cleaning, examining, and repairing them as often and completely as he ought. He further stated that several weeks prior to this fearful explosion, he had informed one of the proprietors (Mr. Bartholomew) of the deficiency referred to, but nothing had been done to remedy it.

The coroner's jury delivered a verdict of "accidentally killed," but they attached considerable blame to Mr. Bartholomew for not having provided additional boiler-room, as suggested by the enginewright.

Mr. Bartholomew promptly assured me that two more boilers should speedily be erected.

Source: 1860 Mines Inspectors Report, Yorkshire District, by Charles Morton, H.M. Inspector of Mines, Page: 6

	Batty, William, Boiler bursting
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