Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	30th November 1903
Colliery:	Lindal Moor (Iron Ore)
Cause:	Shaft Accident
Lives Lost:	1

On a Monday morning, at Lindal Moor Mine, when two of the signal wires, those from the second and third stopping places in a shaft, were out of order, deceased and five other miners were descending in the cage. The shaft is vertical, 14 feet by 6 feet area and 100 fathoms deep. One of the signal wires was broken and the other frozen up, and signals from the second and third stopping places were being shouted to the first stopping place, 9 fathoms above the second and 20 fathoms above the third stopping place.

The cage first stopped at the second eye, and all got off and waited there while a man was trying to mend the signal wire, but got on the cage again before this was accomplished and were signalled down to the third eye by shouting to the first eye, a man there signalling by wire to the top hand on the surface, who in turn signalled to the engineman.

When the cage reached the third eye, 80 fathoms from the surface, one man got off, and then shouted to the first eye, 20 fathoms above, to signal for the cage to be lowered, and this was communicated to the top hand by the signal wire and then to the engineman, but as some delay naturally arose, four of the five men on the cage got off, after the man who was already off the cage had shouted to the level above to let the cage stand, which signal, however, the top hand stated was not communicated to him ; the party left the cage because they were without lights and partly because they could reach the shaft bottom from the third eye by a drift, and they apparently expected deceased, who had suggested leaving the cage, would follow them. He had not done so at once, but may have been leaving the cage when it moved downwards ; at any rate, he was found at the bottom of the shaft in the sump, 20 fathoms below. He could not very well fall from the cage when it had left the eye, as there was only 8 or 9 inches between the cage and the side of the shaft, and he was a very bulky man.

When deceased was missed they all proceeded to the shaft bottom by the drift, and he was found lying in the sump, and some unaccountable delay occurred before he was taken out.

The Coroner's jury returned a verdict of accidental death, with a rider that lights should be provided at the different insets in the pit.

Source:

1903 Mines Inspectors Report (Cd 2119), Newcastle District (No. 3) by J. B. Atkinson, H.M. Inspector of Mines, copy held in the Scottish Mining Museum, Newtongrange, Midlothian.

	Walker, Thomas, aged 62, Miner, shaft accident
	All names found

 

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