Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	21st June 1891
Colliery:	West Auckland
Cause:	(See description below)
Lives Lost:	1

No. 26 on the list occurred at West Auckland Colliery, belonging to Messrs. Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., Limited, on the 21st of June, about 7.45 a.m., causing the death of James Gregory Bruce, a boiler cleaner.

Deceased was going to clean out No. 14 boiler at this colliery, and the boiler-minder therefore screwed all the valves down, and then set a donkey engine to pump cold water into the boiler to cool it ; when deceased said there was plenty in it, the pump was stopped. He got into the boiler, and was immediately heard to shout. It appears one of the boilers had primed and thrown hot water back through the feed-pipe from another range of boilers into the one which deceased was working, scalding him so severely that he died on the 28th of June last. A piece of dirt had got on to the face of one of the valves and prevented it from closing properly.

Source:

1891 Mines Inspectors Report (C 6625)

	Bruce, James Gregory, aged 48, Boiler Minder, while engaged cleaning out a boiler a quantity of hot water was primed back through a leaking valve on another boiler, scalding him so severely that he died on the 28th instant
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