St. Helen’s Colliery, at Workington, which was the scene of a disastrous explosion in 1887, took fire last night as the result of a man’s firing a shot in face of the main band. Shortly afterwards an explosion occurred by which Joseph Atkinson, married, and living at Siddick, was killed ; and George Scoular, managing director of the colliery, John Morrison, manager, T. P. Martin, coal owner’s secretary, and Joseph Peacock, Joshua Mulcaster, William McTrusty, John Underwood, Joshua Underwood, James Lumsden, and J. Holliday were seriously injured. At the time of the explosion, which occurred at 8 o’clock, these officials and workmen were engaged in walling up the fire in the pit. A large number of colliers who were working in adjacent roadways fell on their faces to escape the gas and crawled towards the shaft. Those men who were uninjured helped to rescue and bear along with them those who were injured. Relief parties were formed to search for men who might be missing and, after arduous and dangerous work near to the burning portion of the pit, all were rescued with the exception of a miner named Hoodless. Several doctors from Workington and district arrived and attended to the injured before their removal to the Workington Infirmary. The officials and gangs of workmen remained throughout the night at the pit as the fire was still burning in the seam, and there were further volunteer search parties to find Hoodless.
The Times, 8th January 1904
- Around 1.30pm in the course of normal operations a shot firer, John Clark, notices some gas present just as he is about to set off a controlled explosion to loosen coal in the seam. He erects a canvas stopping and checks again but finds no more gas. The explosion causes a fire within the loosened coal which he cannot put out alone.
- The manager John Morrison and several others including a deputy Lawson Clapperton and a back overman, Fallas Morrison went down and attended the fire in an effort to extinguish it by cutting off the air flow with canvas stoppings.
- 3.15pm an initial explosion occurs injuring these persons. They return to the surface and Morrison the manager is taken home due to his injuries.
- At 5pm George Scoular the managing director and his son who is a surveyor of the colliery arrive. With an assortment of other colliery managers from the district, they go underground and conclude they need more people.
- At 6.30pm a party of about 25 people, including mine deputy William Hoodless, head back to the location and determine that the fire seems to have gone out. They decide to work on erecting more stoppings at various points to stop the air circulating around the workings in case the fire should break out again.
- At 8.30pm a second explosion takes place. Joseph Atkinson is killed taking the worst of the blast while putting up stoppings in the return air way. Several others scramble to get themselves out and Ball, Scoular, Cowie and Hodgkiss help carry out the body. In this confusion, William who was working between the the return airway and the original site, seems to have taken a wrong turn and the others did not notice he was not with them as they exited.
- At 9.50pm a third explosion took place. No one further was injured.
- J B Atkinson HM Inspector of Mines arrives on site at 10.30pm having traveled from Newcastle on Tyne. He makes an assessment and decides it is too dangerous to attempt to rescue William and then leads a work crew to build stoppings near the shafts to isolate the district around the seam. Atkinson knew that an almost identical explosion had taken place in the same seam of this mine in April 1888 and 30 lives had been lost.
- By 10.30am the next morning the shafts had been sealed and smoke was seen coming out on the return air road indicating gas was once again burning.
- The stoppings built of brick and slag lime were over two feet thick and were then strengthened and reinforced with 6 feet of sand and 18 inch brick walls.
- On 31st March 1904 the return air stopping was removed, then shortly after the shaft and intakes were removed. A large amount of gas was detected escaping but the fire was out.
- William’s body was recovered on 2nd April when an inspection was possible.
Article from the Lancashire Daily Post 4th April 1904
Inquest Conclusion
The coroner found that Clark was not at fault in firing the shot after noticing gas. The explosions were the result of a “blower” of gas and not the stowite shot. He commended the bravery of everyone who went down after the initial explosion to try to wall off the fire and prevent further explosion and in doing so, risking their lives. HM Inspector Atkinson thought Clark lacked caution, knowing gas had been present, and pointed out that the risk of explosion increased dramatically once air was prevented from circulating through the area.