Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	29th August 1901
Colliery:	Wingate Grange
Cause:	(See description below)
Lives Lost:	1

No. 291 on the list occurred at Wingate Grange Colliery belonging to The Owners of Wingate Grange Colliery, on the 29th of August, and caused the death of a hewer.

This accident occurred in an old district of the Harvey Seam, where the pillars are being taken out, and owing to the places made in the first working having stood for many years, breakers and slips are frequently met with.

A place was being driven, with a loose side, up the side of a pillar, and for about a distance of fifteen yards there was a gullet or breaker running parallel to the place on the right or fast side. The place holed into the goaf early in the morning of the day in question, but the men working in it at that time did not take the coal off, their shift being finished before they could do so. One of them, however, told the deputy to go in as soon as possible. The following shift of hewers in the meantime went in and commenced to hew, and while doing so, and just as the deputy was going into the place, a large fall of stone from the roof occurred and killed the deceased man, and also caught the other hewer on the arm and shoulder. The latter, however, was released at once and was not much worse.

After the fall took place slips and breakers were to be seen on every side of the stone, and it had been simply a question of the coal under it being taken out to allow it to fall without the slightest warning.

Some timber was set under the stone but it was quite inadequate to keep it up, and was either broken or displaced as soon as the coal was taken out. In my opinion, the place should not have been worked at all after it holed till the deputy came in and timbered it securely with chocks or other timber. If the two hewers had not been so impatient, the deputy would most probably have done this when he went in, but they began to hew, with the result that they weakened the support under the stone without putting in timber sufficiently strong to take its place.

Source:

1901 Mines Inspectors Report (Cd 1062), Durham District (No. 4) by R. D. Bain, H.M. Inspector of Mines, from a copy held in the Scottish Mining Museum, Newtongrange, Midlothian

	Ayre, Matthew, aged 24, Hewer, Killed by a large fall of stone at working face. The place had holed into the goaf the previous day, and as soon as the coal was removed the fall occurred., Buried: Station Town Cemetery, Wingate
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