Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	2nd September 1897
Colliery:	Trimdon Grange
Cause:	In Shaft
Lives Lost:	1

No. 378 on the list occurred at Trimdon Grange Colliery, belonging to Messrs. Walter Scott, Limited, on the 2nd September, causing the death of an assistant onsetter.

When this accident happened the men were being sent down the pit at 4 o'clock in the morning. Fifteen of them, including the overmen, got into the cage, and the banksman called through the speaking tube to winding engineman to send the cage away. It eased away gently and then stopped rather suddenly, and the bridle chains rattled on the top of the cage; deceased became nervous and attempted to get out, and while he was doing so the cage dropped away, and he was caught between the point of the guide and the cage shoe and killed instantly.

What caused the cage to stop in the first instance is not quite clear, it was suggested that deceased's clothing — he was standing at the end of the cage — had become fast between the cage and the shaft timber; this may have been so, but I am inclined to think that the keeps were not quite clear, and they caught the cage and held it for a short time, and it had then dropped away as described, and deceased trying to get out at the time when it dropped was caught.

There was nothing wrong with the cage, guides, or keeps after the accident, and everything was quiet and orderly in the cage at the time, and it seems that but for some cause such as I have suggested, the accident would not have happened.

Source:

1897 Mines Inspectors Report (C 8819), Durham District (No. 4) by R. D. Bain, H.M. Inspector of Mines, from a copy held in the Scottish Mining Museum, Newtongrange, Midlothian.

	Barlow, Charles, aged 19, Assistant Onsetter, He was descending the shaft to his work, and by some means just as the cage was leaving the heapstead it stopped and the cage chains lowered on to the top, he attempted to get out and while doing so the cage dropped away and he was crushed between the cage shoe and point "skeet" and killed instantly, Buried: St. Paul's Churchyard, Trimdon Station
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