DAVE WELBOURNE looks back at a Yorkshire mining disaster.

THE morning of July 4, 1838, was a beautiful, sunny day. In the closeknit community of Silkstone, near Barnsley, everyone was about their business. Then at 2pm a violent thunderstorm hit the village. Heavy rain and hailstones turned the main street into an impassable sea of water for seven hours.

At nearby Wentworth Castle, most windows were smashed, and greenhouses and over two miles of wall were destroyed. At Saville Hall, farmer John Archer lost 10 animals, swept away by raging waters. Part of Stainsborough dam gave way in the two-hour deluge.

Underground, miners at Huskar Coal Mine near Silkstone were ignorant of what was going on above. Then the lift stopped working because the fire which fired up the steam engine went out. It would take some time to repair.

In the meantime, 48 miners at the coalface (‘hewers’) and 80 women and children (‘hurriers’ and ‘trappers’) were trapped. Hurriers were often the wives, and older children of the miners , who transported heavy tubs of coal to the shaft base, from where it was taken to the surface.

Younger children, some only seven or eight, sat in a little hole in the darkness from the start of the working day until the end. The ventilation of the mine depended entirely on trap-doors being kept closed after carriages of coal had passed. This was to prevent bad air drifting down to lower levels, which would be fatal to the miners. Accidents occurred because young trappers fell asleep, or lacked concentration.

After nine hours down the pit, the children were tired and hungry, and remained in the darkness not knowing what was going on. Adults said they should move to the bottom of the pit but rather than wait, 40 children decided to escape through a side tunnel of an old mine, used for ventilation.

But they couldn’t know that a tiny stream which went through Nabs Wood had swelled, and the banks burst. The torrent swept into the mine shaft just as the youngsters were halfway up it. Stronger children managed to take refuge in a small slit to one side of the passage, but most had no chance and 26 were swept against the door where their bodies piled up on top of each other, and drowned.

As the torrent abated the 14 survivors made their way out of the tunnel, and raised the alarm. One of the first rescuers was Joseph Garnett who found his nine year-old-son, George, underneath the other bodies. He couldn’t retrieve him until all the other bodies were removed.

The corpses were taken to Throstle Hall where George Teasdale and another man named Bradley, washed their faces for identification. Survivors stood around, heads bowed, their coal-black faces blotched by streaming tears.

That evening, carts containing bodies of the dead passed through the village, pausing at the door of each victim, where grieving mothers sobbed.

Three families suffered a double loss: George Birkinshaw, 10, and his brother, Joseph, seven; Issac Wright, 12, and brother Amos, eight; James Clarkson, 16, and sister Elizabeth, 11 (she was buried at the feet of her brother).

Altogether 11 girls, aged eight to 15, and 15 boys, aged seven to 16, were killed.

An inquest was held at the Red Lion in Silkstone in front of Sheffield coroner Mr Badger. The mine owner called it a “terrible tragedy”. He agreed that young children, especially girls, should not work underground, but conceded that parents relied on their wages.

It was stated that in the West Riding, there were pits that employed children as young as three, usually working alongside their fathers, holding a candle.

  • In his next article, Dave looks at how the inquiry led to legislation ending child labour in mines.