Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	16th November 1927
Colliery:	Bewick Main
Cause:	(See description below)
Lives Lost:	1

A fatality emphasising the need for proper training of boys and the danger from sudden diminutions below the safe clearance between tubs and the roof or sides of a roadway occurred at Bewick Main Colliery, Durham, where a pony driver was killed on his third day at work. The two preceding days had been spent in the shaft siding where there was good headroom and illumination but on the third day the master shifter sent the boy to drive a pony in place of the regular driver who was absent from work. As the boy was coming outbye riding on the pony limbers he reached the brow edge of a top canch which caused a reduction in the height of the roadway from 5' 1" to 3' 9". The inexperienced boy failed to realise that he was approaching a restricted portion of the roadway and he was crushed between the top of the first tub and a rail girder set as a roof support under the canch. He sustained a fracture of the skull and was instantly killed. In my view, (1) the boy was far too young and inexperienced to be working alone; (2) such a roadway which did not allow a safe clearance between the tub and roof, was not a suitable place for him to be set to work; and (3) no boy should be permitted to ride the limbers during the first few months of his employment underground or where there is not a safe clearance at all parts of the roadway.

Source:

1927 Mines Inspectors Report

	Miller, Sam, aged 14, Driver, crushed by tubs
	All names found

 

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