#mining disaster

On September 18th 1959 47 miners were killed at Auchengeich Colliery, Lanarkshire when the bogies carrying them to work ran into smoke 1,000 feet below ground.

Most tragedies on this scale are further back in history, there will still be people out there that were involved in, or remember this. By the time the 80's arrived I only recall accidents at my local pit, where there were single casualties, this disaster would have shocked a whole community.

No day in the last century of Scottish mining was more tear-stained than September 18, 1959. In the space of just a few minutes, 47 miners died, 41 women were widowed and 76 children lost their fathers. Just one miner survived.

The death toll from the underground fire in Auchengeich Colliery, in Lanarkshire, was the worst in the history of mining in this country. The tragedy decimated families.

The day that turned to tragedy began unremarkably. At about 7am on that Friday, the early morning shift had clocked on. They were being carried to the coalface hundreds of feet underground in a small train of bogies.

They had no inkling that 1400ft below the surface a deadly sequence of events was in motion.

A canvas transmission belt on an unattended electrically powered fan had jumped off its pulley and was jammed. Friction ignited the belt which, in turn, sparked off oil vaporised from the shaft bearings and the oil deposits around the fan.

The flames, fed by the draught, ignited nearby timbers. The fire filled the main roadway on which the men were riding with a lethal cloud of carbon monoxide.

Tommy Green was the sole survivor out of the 48 miners who took the bogie ride to disaster. He was a strapping 6ft 4in, known to be a gentle giant devoted to his family. Tommy was 50 when the accident happened, the father of six girls vowed to never enter a pit again after his miraculous brush with death.

June 11, 2019.

Taken in an old catholic cemetery somewhere near the small mining towns of Blairmore and Coleman, just west of the Frank slide, the turtle mountain disaster of 1903 (70-more than 90 deaths) as well as the Hillcrest mining disaster of 1914 (189 out of 228 workers killed) , which happened to be the worst mining disaster in Canadian history. This area is hauntingly beautiful, adorned with abandoned mines and brick buildings and some of the best thunderstorms I have ever seen (basically a guarantee). A general melancholic feeling that sits stagnant in the air, you can’t help but think of all the people that lost their lives, buried under rock, one way or another.

This is one of my favourite areas to visit, and I will always think back to Crowsnest Pass very fondly. If I could ever afford it, I would run away for 2 months and hermit away to write a record here. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always dreamt of doing so.

Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, Canada

Part of the former town of Frank was entombed in 1903 by a landslide. Historically the Blackfoot and Kutenai didn't camp there due to the slope's instability.

On 10th January 1947, the West Lothian village of Burngrange was witness to its worst underground mining disaster.

he disaster and rescue attempt were national news, but the impact on the local communities and the victims’ families is still felt today.

The flame from a carbide lamp ignited a pocket of firedamp. Only a small explosion was felt at first, but this ignited more gas and within half an hour the timbers and oil shale in the mine were on fire. Thirty eight men were able to escape, bringing with them the body of John McGarty who had been killed by the initial explosion.

Another fourteen men were trapped behind the fire. Despite “one of the most dramatic and gallant rescue bids.....

"The first rescue squad was driven back by smoke, but others equipped with breathing apparatus quickly followed them. Talk among the waiting crowd was hushed when two men appeared carrying a stretcher with a blanket covering the figure on it."

"...a crowd of 300, including the wives and mothers of many of the men on the shift who had remained below after the explosion in the hope of helping their stricken comrades, waited silently and anxiously at the shaft. "

Source: Aberdeen Journal, 11th January 1947.

The fires went on burning for 4 days and it was very difficult for the fire crew to reach the miners. The families had to wait all this time, still hoping that their loved ones were alive. It must have been horrible for them waiting like this.

In the history of mining”, the trapped men could not be reached, and their bodies were brought out of the pit on the 15th of January

Tragedy struck Midlothian on September 5th 1889 when Sixty-three miners, some as young as thirteen, died in an underground fire at Mauricewood Pit, Penicuik.

This was the worst mining disaster in the history of the Lothians. Most of them died from suffocation when smoke entered the ventilation system, no cause was ever explained for the accident and you have to wonder how hard they looked...........

The following is extracted from “The Mauricewood Braves” one of Wilsons ‘Mining Lays, Tales and Folk-lore’ published 1916.

“The Mauricewood Pit, at Penicuik, near Edinburgh, took fire on September 5th, 1889, and sixty eight men and boys lost their lives.

The principal product from the pit was ironstone, although coal in small quantities was also produced. The pit had a vertical shaft of 480 feet then a level roadway eastwards of 180 feet and this was followed by a one in eight dip decline of 960 feet (Deaths Incline). Halfway down the decline a steam engine had been erected and another steam engine did duty at the bottom. The steam pipes traversed this route, and it was at the 800 ft slant that the fire broke out among the support timbers. The wood was tinder and inflammable, and it was soon apparent that the conflagration would spread and become disastrous. There were no other outlets to or from the lower level, and unless the men below received a warning note to give them a chance of escape, they must inevitably perish.

Three trapper and pony boys – Robert Hook Tolmie (my own surname but no relation) , aged 14; Michael Hamilton, aged 15; and Thomas Foster, aged 17 years, volunteered to go round the mine and warn all the men below of their danger, but the only shiftman there, his mate was away in another district of the pit- pleaded with the boys not to go away and said that he would go himself to warn the other men of the fires danger, but the boys in unison shouted as they ran

“No, we’ll go” ….. And they went. The brave boys never came back alive.

“They died to save” The bodies of the boys were afterwards recovered (surrounded by over twenty other bodies) near a trapdoor that had got blocked up in the meantime cutting off the avenue of escape. The mine was subsequently flooded to quench the fire that was raging in the workings, and over a year elapsed before the last body was brought to the surface.

The heroism and self-sacrifice of the three lads aroused sympathetic expressions and admiration throughout the mining world, and a monument marks their last resting place in the Penicuik’s KirkHill Cemetery.

Names of Dead.

The alphabetical list of names below is from a report in the Scotsman.