Merthyr Vale had seven tips. Previous to the departure of the fireman, the deceased had lighted a naked lamp from his safety-lamp which was not locked, and this the fireman seems to have permitted, as he merely told him to be cautious. The seam yields a little fire-damp which was occasionally seen in the upsets or rise places, and the examination of the working places before the entry of the workmen under General Rule 4 (i), was made with a safety lamp. Most of the miners left the mine about 2 p.m., and no one noticed that deceased had not come out; it was no doubt assumed that he had done so. The bottomer saw him fall as he brought forward the full hutch, which he had some difficulty in preventing falling into the shaft. From Main body of report: Accident occurred on a "cuddie brae," or a self-acting incline worked by a balance; the length of the brae was 25 yards, and the inclination 1 in 9. 18 level. and additional names have been added from newspaper reports and other sources - The seam of shale is 5 feet thick, and with 2 feet of underlying blaes which is lifted forms a working 7 feet high, the inclination of the beds is 1 in 5. Fig. Deceased was in the habit of attending to the lamps, and his clothing may have been impregnated with naphtha and oil, as it continued burning until he was led into a pond. They accordingly proceeded to clear out the gas by tightening and re-arranging screens in order to force more air in, and it appears that some time after commencing operations the fireman went out to the pit bottom to get some stuffing, leaving the deceased on one side of a screen which separated him from the air current in which the firedamp was expected to be carried away. The engineman stated that after setting the bottom deck of the cage level with the bench he turned for a moment to look towards the boilers, and on looking back he saw that the piece of iron connected with the wire of No. After the accident, it appeared that deceased when applying for work had stated to the manager that he was over 16 years of age, while in fact he was not 16, and therefore not allowed under Section 7 (8) of the Act to move railway waggons. The drawers ran their hutches down the brae, and it appeared that deceased had accidentally allowed the loaded hutch to run down the incline before he had attached the chain to it and being in front of it was run over. By this rule it is provided that where firedamp has been found and cannot be at once cleared out, the workmen shall not be allowed to enter – if the accumulation be dangerous – any place ventilated with the current of air which has left that place, until the impure air by further appliances has been entirely dispelled. The fireman, however, was to blame for having failed to lock the lamps in use, and for having allowed the deceased to use an open light, however obtained. The Blantyre mining disaster, which happened on the morning of 22 October 1877, in Blantyre, Scotland, was Scotland's worst ever mining accident. 2 is a sketch of the place. This is a database of over 164,000 records containing the details of coalmining accidents and deaths in the UK. The air-current at C then measured only 240 cubic feet per min. Deceased lived alone, and no alarm was raised in consequence of his not returning home, and he lay in the mine until Monday morning, when a roadsman who was examining the workings found him under the fall. The fireman stated he examined the place in which the explosion occurred, and found it clear. Coal mining creates waste, and the waste rock was dumped in an area called a tip. Details of coal operations throughout Scotland are given in the coal holdings register (CB16) and related release files (CB17) and plans (RHP 10 000) gathered under the terms of the Coal … These registers contain all sudden and accidental deaths in Scotland, not just those by mining so this is an extensive task. While he was away a waggon-trimmer uncoupled the leading waggon and moved it forward about a foot; deceased attempted to pass between it and the next waggon in order to assist, when the last five of the 10 waggons, which had been moving forward unnoticed, collided with the four waggons behind him and pushed them forward against the leading waggon, causing deceased's head to be crushed between the buffers. There were no shuts in the shaft at the Fells seam. In this case it was stated by a fellow workman, who was engaged with deceased at the face of a stone mine, that deceased had charged the hole with bobbins of compressed gunpowder, and was in the act of stemming the hole with a pick shaft when the shot exploded, but from the fact that on an examination of the place I found a bobbin of gunpowder lying near the hole with the fuse inserted, I am led to believe that the hole was being charged at the time it exploded ; a wooden stemmer for pushing home the charge was in the possession of the men, but it was found some distance from the hole, and had evidently not been in use at the time; a steel jumper was lying near the hole. The miners used the day level in going to and returning from their work. Deceased was engaged in stooping in a tract of Ell coal lying near the surface, approached by a day level. 3 of William Dixon's Blantyre Colliery were the site of an explosion which killed 207 miners, the youngest being a boy of 11. The upset was bratticed to within 10 yards of the face. 1), in which the deceased worked. The engineman stated he received a signal to raise the cage ; the bottomer stated he gave no signal and did not think deceased gave one as he would have heard the rebound of the signal lever at the bottom had he done so. The fireman and the deceased were instructed by the under-manager to clear out the firedamp, and to use safety-lamps while doing so. The cages have three decks, each deck holding one hutch. At this time deceased, a driver who had nothing to do with the bottoming, offered to go round for the empty hutch; he did so and had moved it when the engineman drew away the cage and deceased fell to the bottom of the shaft. There was also a contravention of Special Rule 38 in this case which might have been attended with serious consequences. The books do not list the dates of accidents, only the date of the inquiry. The hole was machine-drilled, and was in such a position that it is possible that a spark from deceased's lamp, which he probably had in his bonnet, may have dropped into the hole and ignited the charge. Two or three minutes afterwards Peter Tonar opened the screen door at the foot of the upset, and immediately the fire-damp was ignited. It provided for public inquiries by sheriff and jury, upon petition by the procurator fiscal, into fatal accidents … 18 level, where the accident happened, is 62 fathoms from the bottom; during the principal shift two bottomers were employed, the full hutches being placed on the cage at one side and the empty hutches being taken off at the other, but during the afternoon shift, in which the accident happened, only one bottomer was employed, and the full hutches were placed upon and the empty hutches taken off the same side of the cage, the other side being then closed by an ordinary fence. The shaft, rectangular in shape, contained two cage spaces, but only one was used for raising shale from the Fells shale, a water chest in the other space raised water from the Broxburn shale when the other cage was not in use from Fells shale. This explosion, resulting in 2 deaths, was caused by the deceased persons proceeding past a fence with naked lights into an unoccupied place in which they had previously worked, their object being to measure the distance driven. Shortly before the accident the bottomer at No. There is some probability that had deceased been rescued soon after the fall took place his life might have been saved. The district was examined on the day of the explosion by the fireman before work was commenced, and no fire-damp was then seen. 2 and No. The surface clay was within two feet of the coal at the point where the fall took place. The cages did not run below the mid-working and the dip-winding space into which deceased fell was partially closed by two bars on which the cage rested ; these bars were about 2 feet apart. The engineman stated, however, that the movement of the piece of iron was a sufficient signal. 18 level raised his signal lever and the top deck of the cage was set level with the bench; this deck was empty and was loaded with a full hutch, the cage was signalled up so that the lower decks might be loaded; the second deck was already loaded; the engineman therefore set the third and lowest deck level with the plates, it contained an empty hutch. Some time after this a fall of roof took place, and deceased was buried. Four persons were burnt, one of whom died in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary six days after the accident. The Durham Mining Museum. Two days before the accident the cage winding from Fells shale was tilted up to hold two hutches abreast instead of only one, and when this was done the gate that had been in use was too narrow, it was taken off' and the joiner was instructed to hang a wider one; this was not done and the shaft remained unfenced up to the time of the accident. By 1966, the seventh tip, which was begun in … From Main body of report: Deceased, a pitheadman, was in a cabin filling a naphtha lamp with naphtha from a gallon can. Shortly it is as follows : each level is provided with a signal lever which also acts as a fence to the shaft, the wire from this lever moves a piece of iron in a box and rings a bell in the engine-house. This was a case of a bottomer falling from a mid-working into the shaft.