Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	21st February 1895
Colliery:	Cornsay
Cause:	Fall of roof or side
Lives Lost:	1

Number 8 on the list occurred at Cornsay Colliery, at about 11 a.m. on the 21st of February, causing the death of James Henry Boddiner, a coal hewer.

This man was killed instantly by a stone measuring 5 ft. 4 ins, long, tapering to 1 ft. 6 ins, at the other side, x 5 ft. 11 ins, wide x 1 ft. 4 ins. thick, and weighing about two tons, falling on to him in his working place, which had only been turned away on the previous day. The hewer who was working in the p lace during the previous shift was employed taking up bottom stone, to enable the tubs to be got into it. When deceased came in he commenced to hew, or work the coal away, and almost immediately exposed a slip, just above the coal face; there were also two others, running towards each other at the sides, and the other end of the stone was quite free. As soon as the slip in the face was exposed, the support at that end of the stone being gone, it fell and canted the timber out, which consisted of a plank and two props, set at the other end of the stone, and thus let it down on to deceased.

There was plenty of loose timber lying close to, and there should have been some of this set under the stone, nearer the face, as the breakers, which were numerous, and caused by the 5/4 (five-quarter) seam, 6 fathoms below, being worked out, were very open, and the two running along the sides of the stone would be visible before it fell, and, even if the slip in the face had not appeared, they would have met in a very short distance, and caused the stone to fall in the same way as the slip did.

I am sorry, in connexion with this accident, to have to say it transpired that the deputies had not been doing their duty. The one in the previous shift had never been in the place after making the inspection before the hewers commenced work, and the one in the shift in which the accident occurred, on the day previous had not made an examination of this place, although a report was made and signed that all was safe.

I made an inquiry, and found that the work these deputies had to do was much more than they could satisfactorily perform, and the manager, on my making representations to him, promised be would in future employ an extra deputy in the district in which this accident occurred.

The deputies were wrong, even if they had too much work, not to report the fact that they had not been to make an examination of this place, and were cautioned as to their future conduct.

Source:

1895 Mines Inspectors Report (C 8074), Durham District (No. 4) by Thomas Bell, H.M. Inspector of Mines

	Boddiner, James, aged 21, Hewer, killed by a fall of stone
	All names found

 

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