Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	2nd April 1907
Colliery:	Whitburn
Cause:	Lost in the mine
Lives Lost:	1

An extraordinary case of a back-overman, Daniel Mark Bence, aged 45, losing himself in the mine and eventually dying of starvation, occurred at the Whitburn Colliery belonging to the Harton Coal Company, Ltd. He was last seen alive in the mine about 9.15 a.m. on Tuesday, April 2nd, and nothing was seen of him again till his dead body was discovered at 9.15 a.m. on May 7th.

At 7.30 a.m. on the morning of April 2nd he arranged with the fore-overman to visit the men working in the Fourth West Cross-cut, splitting the pillars in the Bensham seam. Two sets of men were at work in this district separated by some abandoned workings. The fore-overman accompanied Bence into the district, which is about 1½ miles from the pit bottom, and whilst walking there, he said he would show Bence a short cut from the one set of men to the other, and took him through two manhole doors into the return airway and along it to the Barrier Flat where the first set of men were working. They parted company at some separation doors leading into another district and before doing so, the fore-overman asked Bence if he knew the place and the road back and Bence said he recognised where he was and knew the way back and he would go and visit the men in the barrier and then return by the way he had come in, viz., the short cut and thence on to the other set of men, Bence then visited all the men in the Barrier Flat and was last seen alive by a putter at the flat about 9.15 a.m., but no remarks passed between them.

In the ordinary course he should have returned to the pit bottom about 1.30 p.m., and his absence was at once noticed, as nothing unusual had occurred in the working of the mine to account for it.

Four or five deputies and the back-overman immediately returned and searched about the roads on the short cut it was surmised he would take when travelling from the men in the Barrier Flat to the other men. At 7 p.m. about 30 men joined in the search and at about 10 p.m. organised search began, between 40 and 50 men, stonemen, deputies, and officials, assembled and concentrated their efforts in searching the abandoned workings south of the Barrier Flat and immediately adjoining the shorter route shown him by the fore-overman in the morning, the impression being that in returning this was to get to the other men, Bence had taken the wrong turn and lost himself in the abandoned split pillars and been buried under a fall of roof. These falls were systematically examined and turned over wherever possible, the searchers shouting and jowling at each road end. The night shift hewers descended at 5 p.m. and worked their shift, but the rest of the men held a meeting and decided not to come to work for the remainder of the week or until Bence was found ; the colliery consequently was idle until April 8th. In the meantime the search was prosecuted with resolute devotion and unremitting zeal, and eventually on May 7th Bence’s body was found in the abandoned workings about midway between the two sets of men he had to visit and about 300 yards from the last working place he had visited and on the opposite side of the Barrier workings to that where it was conjectured he might have lost himself.

He was lying on his back, hands on breast, against the side of the coal in a split which had been driven 6 yards wide through a pillar and was completely hemmed in though not touched by a fall of roof, the stones of which were too heavy for him to lift. His stick and leather cap were lying by his side and a pencil was stuck in one of the ventilation hole of the latter. His watch and note-book were underneath him and he had taken one of his boots off. It is rather singular that he had written nothing in his note-book. The place varied in height from 18 inches to 2 feet. The following day his lamp was found about 36 yards from the body. It had a screw lock and all the parts were taken to pieces and laid regularly on the floor ; it was not damaged. About a tablespoon of oil was in the oil pot. The pricker was bent back ; the deceased may have done this to drink the oil.

A post-mortem examination of the body was made in the presence of three medical men ; they found no injuries to the body, no bones broken, all the organs healthy, no sign of poison, and they could not account for death except by starvation.

During Bence’s conversation with the fore-overman in the morning he had been regretting that there was not a shorter route between his men, that he had tried to find a shorter way two or three weeks previously but had not succeeded. The distance from one set of men to the other by the route shown him by the fore-overman is about 1,200 yards, and the distance across the abandoned workings is only 300 yards, and although these workings were abandoned only five months previously owing to "creep" coming on, they were in an unsafe state and to a large extent closed by falls of roof. No one knew this better than Bence or imagined that he would attempt to cross them, as he was known to be a cautious man. But his intimate knowledge of these workings has probably led him to endeavour to find a short cut through, that in doing so he has lost his light and in trying to find his way out in the dark he has been shut off and entombed by a heavy fall of roof and eventually starved to death.

During the search, parties of men were near where the body was ultimately found.

A curious feature about the business was that deceased made a written report as to the state in which he found the workings before he commenced his round, even going the length of stating he had found gas at a point where it was generally observed.

It may be stated in connection with this fatality that had Bence’s lamp been fitted with an internal igniting apparatus his life would probably not have been lost.

Source:

1907 Mines Inspectors Report (Cd 4045), Newcastle District (No. 3) by J. B. Atkinson, H.M. Inspector of Mines

	Bence, Daniel Mark, aged 45, Back Overman, lost in the mine
	All names found

 

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