Accident At The Ravenslodge Colliery, Dewsbury.

1, Brick Court, Temple, 28th January 1893.

Sir,

Pursuant to instructions received by me from the Solicitor to the Treasury, I attended the inquest on the bodies of the persons who lost their lives in this accident, and I have the honour to report to you as follows :—

The accident took place on the evening of the 4th August 1892. Owing to the impossibility of recovering the bodies, the inquest was delayed, and the inquiry was not brought to a conclusion until the 10th January last, on which day the jury returned a verdict of accidental death in the case of all the deceased. On this occasion I was present. Mr. Frank N. Wardell, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Mines for the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire district, was also present, and I had the benefit of his assistance in eliciting the necessary evidence, and in forming a judgment upon it.

The cause of the accident, as shown by the evidence and found by the verdict, was the giving way, under pressure of water, of a defective segment of the tubbing in the upcast shaft. The segment gave way about 10.10 p.m. on the 4th August. At that time there were below the surface seven persons, six of whom — Richard Swallow, his two sons, John Swallow, F. Beaumont, and J. Hurst — lost their lives.

These persons were employed in heightening a main road of the workings. The seventh person below the surface was William Lund, the furnaceman, who gave evidence. The men descended about 9 p.m. Lund and Richard Swallow remained by the furnace; the rest went to their work. About 10.10 p.m. Lund noticed that air and smoke began to come back on him down the upcast shaft. He called Swallow's attention to this. Swallow said that he must go and warn the rest, and he started along the main road for this purpose. Lund reached the bottom of the downcast shaft, signalled to the top, and was taken up. He reported that something was wrong, and shortly afterwards heard a loud noise in the shaft; this noise was no doubt caused by the fall of segments of tubbing. The signal bell to the bottom was rung, but there was no answer. The manager, Mr. Doctor Ashton, descended the upcast shaft for about 30 yards, but foul air compelled him to return.

The water was now rising rapidly in both shafts, and continued to do so until it had risen 200 yards.

Owing to the flooding, search for the bodies was for some time impossible. On the 12th October the body of Richard Swallow was found at a cross road about 70 yards up the main road, and on the 13th December the other five bodies were found at the highest point of the workings.

The water had reached this spot, but the condition of the bodies made it impossible to say whether death had been caused by suffocation, from want of air, or by drowning.

When the upcast shaft was clear of water, there were found at the bottom nine segments of tubbing; of these, three were whole, the remainder were more or less broken, the fractures being due in some cases to the fall of 200 yards from the point where the breach in the tubbing occurred to the bottom of the shaft. One of the segments (referred to at the inquest as No. 1) is broken entirely in two. An examination of it shows a fracture beginning at a flaw in one of the longer flanges, passing through a second flaw in the boss, and terminating at the opposite flange. The fracture thus goes right across the plate, through two flaws, and shows, in part of its length, the presence of inferior metal. It is this No. 1 segment which is found to have caused the accident; the water, accumulated in the strata of the shaft, broke through the segment, and, a breach being thus made, the other eight segments gave way, and the water streamed into the shaft.

The manager and under-manager gave evidence, in answer to me, to the effect that the inspection of the shafts required by the statute (section 49, general rule 5) had been duly and properly made and recorded in the book directed to be kept for that purpose. The book itself could not be produced; it was kept at the bottom of the shaft, and was destroyed in the flooding.

General rule 37 directs that the book should be kept "at the office at the mine." This would appear to mean on the surface; and it seems desirable that the book, or a duplicate of it, should always be on the surface.

In addition to this inspection, the tubbing had been for some time past the subject of examination by workmen, and men were at work inserting additional wedges in the joints, wherever any moisture was detected, on the day of the accident. These men left work at 10 p.m., only a few minutes before the accident, and the man in charge, Barrett, deposed that the tubbing was then to all appearance sound.

The thickness of the tubbing was one inch. This is, according to the evidence, a greater thickness than is required for a shaft of the diameter of this shaft, and subject to a similar pressure of water. With the exception of the nine segments above referred to, the tubbing remained, and now remains, sound, and in its place. Neither the wedging nor the crib-bed has given way. This fact seems to show that the work of putting in the tubbing was well done. If the tubbing, fixed as it was, had been sound and free from flaws, I think the evidence shows that it would have been sufficient for its purpose. With reference to the responsibility for the defective segment, the verdict of the jury finds that no blame whatever attaches to Mr. Haigh (the owner of the colliery) or his workmen. The segments were tested with hammer and chisel before being used. According to the evidence of Mr. Niven, the manager of an adjoining colliery, who, as an expert, examined the segments, the flaws in segment No. 1 were covered by sound metal on both outside surfaces, and were latent in the sense that they would probably (Mr. Niven would not speak positively) not be discovered by any test which is ordinarily or reasonably could be applied. The jury found that the defect "was not visible when (the segment was) put in."

Segment No. 1 was supplied by Messrs. Firth and Clay, of Dewsbury, who were represented at the inquest. The fact of the flaws being latent, in the sense above-mentioned, was relied on as an excuse for the manufacturers delivering the segment, no less than for the owner using it. The manufacturers called no evidence to prove to what examination they were in the habit of subjecting segments before delivering them, and there is, in my opinion, no reasonable doubt that the segment in question was very defective, and, in parts, of inferior metal. The verdict does not refer to this matter.

I think it is my duty to add that several segments supplied to Mr. Haigh by the same firm, were, when tested by him, found to be defective, and were rejected. In the case of one of these, the segment had, at a place where there was an inequality in the surface, been plugged with lead, and the surface of the lead covered over with black-lead, or some similar substance, in order, apparently, to conceal the presence of the lead. A piece of lead weighing about 3½ lbs. was taken out of the cavity.

No evidence was offered to explain how, or by whom, the lead had been inserted in the cavity. The above facts were elicited at the inquest, but none of the tubbing actually used appeared to have been treated in the manner above described.

In my opinion, there was no evidence disclosing any breach of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1887, nor justifying the prosecution of any persons under the provisions of that Act.

The following is a copy of the finding of the jury, delivered by the foreman in writing :—

"We unanimously agree that Richard Swallow and the other five men lost their lives through the giving way of a defective section of the tubbing, and we also agree that no blame whatever attaches to Mr. Haigh or his workmen, and that the defect was not visible when put in, and consider the cause of death purely accidental."

A transcript of the shorthand note of the proceedings accompanies this report.

I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

Anthony H. Hawkins.

To the Right Hon. H. H. Asquith, Q.C., M.P.,

One of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State.