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V. — Means of Information Available Regarding the Old Workings
The cause of the disaster having been the want of knowledge of the proximity of the disused waterlogged workings in the Brockwell Seam from the Paradise Pit, it is necessary to examine with some detail the reason for this ignorance.
As already explained the present boundary between the western and the eastern leaseholds first came into existence in 1881. The mining engineer acting for the lessors of both leaseholds was then the late Mr. William Armstrong, who had acted as check viewer for the Benwell Royalty since about 1841. As a result of a search which was made after the disaster there was discovered in the private desk of the late Mr. Thomas Walter Benson, by one of his executors, a correspondence which had taken place in 1887-88 between the late Mr. Thomas Walter Benson, who was one of the lessees of the western leasehold and the late Mr. William Armstrong. The correspondence was concerned mainly with a request by the lessees for a reduction of the royalty payments, in view of the disappointing character of the coal in the Brockwell Seam, but incidentally the matter of the old Paradise Pit workings came up. On 30th August, 1887, the late Mr. Armstrong wrote to the late Mr. Thomas Walter Benson as follows :—
"I am sorry to hear your account of the Brockwell — you are entitled to concession under the circumstance — but certainly the seam is better in the Pit worked by Mr Matt. Liddell some years ago1. Did I not send you Sections of the Seam as ascertained by myself? and the copy of the workings I then made I cannot find and I may possibly have sent to you. I shall see you shortly on the subject."
On the next day, 31st August, 1887, Mr. Armstrong wrote a further letter to Mr. Benson as follows :—
"I send you copy Notes from my Pit Book, notes made by myself on the Brockwell Seam, when I examined the Pit with Matthew Liddell. I have a copy of the Working plan at the date, but I cannot put my hands at present upon it; if you think it will be of any assistance to you I will look over my old library once more. I have an idea that I forwarded you a copy of this Plan — or probably the Plan itself. As to the extent of the workings when the Seam was abandoned I cannot say the Plan is complete, but you may know when the Seam was abandoned and, you can judge from the date of the Notes what further extension there would be from memory. I should say that not much more was done, but you must not place any reliance upon this."
To these letters Mr. Benson replied 1st September, 1887 :—
"I am much obliged for yours of the 30th and 31st inst. also for the copy of notes you kindly have sent me. I expect they refer to the West or Beaumont Pit near Paradise which is some distance East of my boundary and it is I believe the only Pit down to Brockwell.
"With regard to the working plan mentioned in yours the 31st inst. I have never seen it and am pretty sure you did not send it to me. In any case as I believe all the workings in the Brockwell from the Paradise Pit are some distance outside our tract of Royalty, I think you need not take much trouble to find it, at the same time I am obliged for the offer. From what I can gather from some of the old men who worked at the Paradise Pits the coal there must have been a great deal better and easier to work than anything we have come across as I think the total cost of Pit Bill, mentioned in your notes, would hardly pay the Hewers now.
"I shall be glad to confer with you on the matter if you will kindly give me an appointment some time shortly."
Some letters intervene relating to the re-adjustment of the royalty scale, and then there occurs the following paragraph at end of a letter dated 27th December, 1887, from Mr. Armstrong to Mr. Benson :—
"I think I forwarded you some time ago a tracing I took from Liddell's plan a short time before the working was abandoned. Have you this or any other such tracing? for these workings must be filled with water and you should arrange precautionary boreholes."
After the this no further mention of old workings appears in the correspondence.
In 1911 the workings in the Brockwell Seam from the Charlotte Pit on the eastern leasehold came in contact with water on their northern boundary and Mr. Cochran Carr, being aware that there were abandoned waterlogged workings to the south also, decided to have the latter marked on his working plan. He had an old tracing showing these workings but, being uncertain of its origin and accuracy he made application for information to the Mining Engineers of the lessors, now Messrs. William Armstrong and Sons, to whom he wrote on 13th March, 1911, inter alia, as follows :—
"We should be glad if you could give us some information as to the extent of the workings in the Brockwell Seam South of the Charlotte Pit. We believe the coal from this seam was worked from the Beaumont Pit near to the river previous to 1848, and we think you have a record. We shall be obliged if you can show us the plan and allow us to take a copy."
The member of the firm who dealt with the Benwell Estate at this date was the late Mr. William Armstrong, Junior, and he, on receipt of this letter, sent a tracing of the old workings in question which he had in his possession to Mr. A. S. Dinning, Land and Mine Surveyor, Newcastle-on-Tyne, with instructions as follows :—
"Dear Sir,
Mr. Cochran Carr has asked us to forward the enclosed tracing to you to make a copy of the workings south of the Charlotte Pit within the pencilled line, Will you kindly proceed with this, forwarding your copy and charges to Mr. Carr and returning the original to us.
Yours faithfully,
William Armstrong and Son
p.p. J.M.T."
The pencilled line represented the boundary between the eastern and the western leaseholds The working plan of the eastern leasehold was at the same time handed to Mr. Dinning, who transferred to it from the tracing the old workings in the Brockwell Seam from the Paradise Pit, but only up to the boundary, in accordance with his instructions, The tracing was then returned by Mr. Dinning to Messrs. William Armstrong and Sons, and the working plan to William Cochran Carr, Limited.
The plan, with the additions by Mr. Dinning, was used on the eastern leasehold as a working plan up to the year 1913, but as the workings in the Brockwell Seam from the Charlotte Pit were extended to the north it became no longer large enough to contain them, and a new plan to show the extended workings was made. Thereafter the plan made by Mr. Dinning showing the old workings in the Brockwell Seam from the Paradise Pit on the eastern side up to, but only up to, the boundary between the two leaseholds fell into disuse.
In the afternoon of the day on which the disaster occurred, Mr. Young, the Manager in the employment of William Cochran Carr, Limited, in response to a telephone message, went over to the office of William Benson and Son, Limited, at the Montagu Colliery, and produced the working plan of the eastern leasehold on which the old workings in the Brockwell Seam from the Paradise Pit were shown cut off at the boundary, as laid down by Mr. Dinning. It was obvious from the truncated manner in which these old workings were shown up to the boundary without any barrier that the workings must have extended beyond the boundary, and the significance of this was at once appreciated. A day or two later Mr. Young brought over the tracing which his Company had in their possession and which he had meantime looked out, showing the whole of the old workings in the Brockwell Seam on both sides of the boundary. On an examination of the plan and the tracing, all doubt as to the source of the water which had caused the disaster was dispelled. It was manifest that the inrush of water had come from these old workings.
The position of matters accordingly at the time of the accident was that the neighbours of William Benson and Son, Limited, immediately adjoining them on the east had in their possession readily accessible records which showed that the old Brockwell Seam workings from the Paradise Pit extended across the boundary into the Montagu Colliery leasehold. Had these records and the information which they conveyed been known to those in charge of the Montagu Colliery the disaster would not have occurred. But they were entirely ignorant of them.
It is an unhappy circumstance that in 1887, as will have been seen from the correspondence above quoted, an opportunity occurred for the acquisition of this vital knowledge of which advantage was not taken and that a warning then given as to the desirability of adopting precautions against the water in the old workings was disregarded. The workings from the View Pit were no doubt at that time a long way from the boundary, and the late Mr. Thomas Walter Benson appears to have been under the belief that the old workings in the Brockwell Seam from the Paradise Pit were some distance beyond his boundary, a misapprehension which was never directly corrected by Mr. Armstrong. The warning, such as it was, contained in this 38 years old correspondence between two persons both since dead fell into oblivion and came to light only after the disaster, when the correspondence was found in Mr. Thomas Walter Benson's private desk and very properly produced.
The only common repository of the knowledge relating to the old workings was the late Mr. William Armstrong and subsequently the firm of William Armstrong and Sons, who acted as mining engineers for the lessors of both leaseholds. The firm was founded in 1890, when the late Mr. William Armstrong took into partnership his sons, the late Mr. William Armstrong Junior, and Mr. Henry Armstrong, who gave evidence at the Inquiry. The late Mr. William Armstrong died in 1896 and his son, William Armstrong, Junior, in 1918. The latter looked after the Benwell Estate royalties and the instructions to Mr. Dinning in 1911 were given by him. Mr. Henry Armstrong, after the disaster, caused a search to be made among the office records, when an envelope was discovered inscribed inter alia "Benwell Colliery, Proposal to work Brockwell Seam now drowned, 13th May, 1913." in the handwriting of the late William Armstrong, Junior. This envelope contained among other documents the tracing which had been sent to Mr. Dinning in 1911, and which showed the whole of the old workings in the Brockwell Seam from the Paradise Pit. Mr. Henry Armstrong, who, with his brother, Mr. R. W. Armstrong, has carried on the business since the death of William Armstrong, Junior, in 1918, had never personally seen this tracing nor did he know anything of it. It is matter for regret that the information as to the old workings which was thus available to the lessors' mining engineers, though not within the personal knowledge of Mr. Henry Armstrong, was never communicated to the lessees of the Montagu Colliery, who, above all others, were concerned to know of it. When the lease dated 31st December, 1924, under which William Benson & Son, Limited, are now working was being negotiated, the question of the old workings was not present to the minds of the lessors' engineers and no reference was made to it. Apparently the old workings were never marked on the progressive plan kept by the lessors' engineers for the purpose of checking the royalties.
It cannot be said that the want of knowledge of the pre-1848 workings on the part of those in charge of the Montagu Colliery at the time of the accident was due to a breach of any express statutory duty on the part of any person concerned, and it is easy to be wise after the event, but the haphazard manner in which the record of the old workings was preserved and dealt with by the lessors' advisers, which resulted in the information which that record contained never being imparted to the lessees of the Montagu Colliery, indicates to my mind an unhappy failure to realise the grave risks involved. The lamentable fact remains that the means of knowledge of the old workings were in existence at the time of the accident in the hands both of the lessors' mining engineers and of the lessees of the adjoining colliery but were not in the possession of the lessees of the Montagu Colliery.
1 The reference is to the disused workings of the Brockwell Seam in the old Paradise Pit from which the water broke in.
