When was the huskar colliery mining disaster

Let this solemn warning then sink deep into thy heart and so prepare thee that the Lord when he cometh may find thee watching. The inscription on the north side-. The mortal remains are deposited in the grave as under-names. First grave beginning at the North End. Birkinshaw Age 10 years. Birkinshaw Age 7 years Brothers. Wright Age 8 years Brothers. Clarkson Age 16 years. Hoveland Age 13 years. Attick Age 12 years. Horne Age 10 years. Hutchinson Age 9 years. Garnett Age 9 years. Simpson Age 9 years.

Lamb Age 8 years. Womersley Age 8 years. Turton Age 10 years. Gotherd Age 8 years. The inscription on the west side-. The inscription on the south side-. The mortal remains of the females are deposited in the graves at the feet of. Garnett Age 11 years. Webster Age 13 years. Moss Age 9 years. Parker Age 15 years. Hollings Age 18 years.

Taylor Age 17 years. Together with Moorend, children worked down the mines at Silkstone, joined by 70 colliers. The man of the house, often the strongest, would be contracted to produce a certain amount of coal within a fortnight. He was helped by his wife and children who worked as trappers and hurriers, helping transport the coal from the rock face to the surface via carts and passageways.

Amongst the 50 children working there that day was little Joseph Burkinshaw, just seven-years-old, who had only been there three days. His dad John worked on the coal face and his older brother George, ten, was a hurrier. Joseph and his fellow trappers earned around sixpence a day, or 2. They worked by candlelight for 12 hours, opening and shutting the traps to keep the pit ventilated and let the hurriers through with the coal tubs.

Conditions were dark and damp. Children were cooped up inside for extremely long periods without regular rest or food breaks. Hurriers were fastened to the coal tubs, pushing and pulling excessive weights with their arms or even heads. Although it started off as a glorious summer day, the weather quickly deteriorated on Wednesday 4th July and by 2pm a vicious thunderstorm ravaged the village and surrounding areas.

Property and land were destroyed. Rivers and streams overflowed. As the miners worked away down the pit, the water began to devastate the area above. Two engine tenters became concerned at the amount of rainwater and feared it would flood the pit bottom. Steward William Lamb began to prepare for evacuation. However, the engine and boiler yard had been flooded, extinguishing the fire in the furnace which powered the winder engine to the shaft.

Instead, workers would have to be lifted out manually a few at a time. Lamb instructed everyone to stay together at the bottom of the pit. Unbeknown to them of what raged on above, the children feared a thunder clap was instead a deadly firedamp explosion.

Two of the four Wright brothers, Isaac and Abraham, 12 and eight, also tried to escape, fearing the same fate as their father John who had been killed by a firedamp explosion the previous year. The report gave graphic detail about some of the horrors of work in factories and mines.

Lord Ashley-Cooper pushed for legislation limiting the hours worked by children and women in mines. Playing on prudish Victorian morality he emphasised the fact that women did their work in the mines bare breasted or wearing trousers.

His legislation passed. The Mines and Collieries Act resulted in a ban on boys younger than 10, and females of any age, working in coal mines and limited the hours of those who did work. To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account?

Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout. Read Today's Paper Tributes. Today in History Don't miss out on the headlines from Today in History. Benjamin Mellow aged 46 years was examined by the Children's Employment Commission on the 18th. March, He told the commission:- " I am underground stewart to four of Mr. Clarke's pits and I have superintendence above 90 colliers. We have had but one bad accident and that was the 4th. July, It had been raining hard during a thunder storm to such an extent that the water came into the sough of the engine house and the engineer gave the alarm to the banksman who shouted out incautiously to put the light out and come out of the pit.

The children and people were frightened, not knowing what was the matter. A number of children, either from the fright or from a desire to get a holiday, ran from the shaft towards the pittrail which forms a second outlet and this, together with the water escaping from the old workings, rushed down the pttrail and met the children who has passed a trap door, against which they were driven by the water and being unable to open it, 26 were drowned, 11 girls and 15 boys.

The water by the marks it left could not have been above six inches deep in its stream down to the pittrail but rose by the door and there they were drowned. Fourteen had got on befor and they had passed sufficiently far to be safe.

I am quite sure that the stream had never overflowed before. No man can prove it. The stream is very small and is dry nine months out of twelve. If the children had remained in the pit or at the shaft, they would have been quite safe, the water never rose anywhere except just where they were drowned".

Badger of Sheffield, Coroner. The bodies had been viewed at their homes and Joseph Huskar who lived in Huskar, told the court what happened on that fateful day. The water swam me down the day hole and through a slit into another bord gate. We thought it was a fire. The water washed the children down the day hole against a door, through which we had just come, and they were all drowned.

If we had stopped at the pitbottom we should have been saved. We heard the water coming and me and Elizabeth Taylor got into a slot in the dayhole and we stopped there until we could get put. The water met the others as they were coming up and drove them against the door were they were drowned". After hearing all the evidence and the accounts of the survivors, the jury returned a verdict of "Accidental Death".