Sylvia Le Bretton has written two small plays about the tragedy which will be performed at both Silkstone Common school playground and the Red Lion pub. Aroundtown is available at over 200 pick-up points across the area. Forty of them decided to go out of the pit by way of the ventilation drift to Nabbs Wood. From Wednesday 4th to Sunday 8th July, Silkstone Church will be open to visitors with floral displays dedicated to the children along with information boards produced by the heritage group which discuss the event, the children and families affected, life in the village and the local mine owners. Clarke of Noblethorpe. His dad John worked on the coal face and his older brother George, ten, was a hurrier.

Rivers and streams overflowed. Moorend Pit. We did not know what we were going out for. We thought it was fire. There is but a step between us and Death. Two of the four Wright brothers, Isaac and Abraham, 12 and eight, also tried to escape, fearing the same fate as their father John who had been killed by a firedamp explosion the previous year. It was connected to the Barnsley Canal by the Silkstone Waggonway. HUSKAR. This monument was erected to perpetuate the remembrance of an awful visitation of the Almighty, which took place in this Parish on the 4th, day of July 1836. A remembrance service, led by the Bishop of Wakefield, Tony Robinson, follows at 3pm with all invited to see a performance from Old Silkstone Band. Clarke of Noblethorpe. Jane Raistrick, whose mother’s family originate from the village, is a member of Silkstone Heritage Group. Let this solemn warning then sink deep into thy heart and so prepare thee that the Lord when he cometh may find thee watching. This ban meant that families with young girls and women moved to other industrial towns such as Huddersfield and Glossop in search of work in service or the woollen and linen mills. Queen Victoria took an interest in the disaster and the loss of so many young lives in a pit was a factor in the setting up of the Royal Commission to enquire into women and children working in coal mines.

Lodge’s  Almanac, 1915. Silkstone, Barnsley. One or two corpses were left at almost every home. © Northern Mine Research Society | Registered Charity Number - 326704. Fourteen others managed to escape where they were met by banksman Francis Garnett. The Huskar Colliery was joined to the Moorend Colliery for the purposes of ventilation and was the colliery was the property of Mr. R.C.

Huskar Colliery , United Kingdom - Underground / Coal Silkstone Colliery was the site of an accident in 1838 when 26 children were drowned as they tried to escape from the Huskar Day-Hole, part of Silkstone Colliery's Moorend and Huskar Pit workings, during a summer thunder-storm. The mortal remains of the females are deposited in the graves at the feet of themselves as under-named: One hundred and fifty years after the disaster, funds from the Silkstone Parish Council made available for the upkeep of the Old memorial to the children and a new memorial was dedicated at the site of the disaster.

The window depicts the disaster, with a lightning bolt, 26 stars in the sky and the names and ages of all children who died in the waves of the water. Starting on the tragedy’s anniversary, 4th July, there will be a range of memorial events taking place in the village. The stream is very small and is dry nine months out of the twelve. The Huskar Pit in Silkstone near Barnsley in Yorkshire was owned by R. C. Clarke of Noblethorpe. It had been raining hard during a thunderstorm to such an extent that the water came into the sough of the engine house and the engineer gave the alarm to the banksman who shouted out incautiously to put the light out and come out of the pit. James Garnett, the father of one of the children, was one who went in after the water had subsided and he found the body of his child. The network was limited by faults – cracks in the strata which caused the seams of coal to suddenly change their depth from the surface. The inquest into the disaster was held at the Red Lion Inn, Silkstone By Mr. Badger of Sheffield, Coroner. While the children were climbing the slope, the water burst through and poured down the drift, trapping and drowning 26 of the 40 children against the ventilation door through which they had just passed. Conditions were dark and damp. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. After hearing all the evidence and the accounts of survivors, the jury returned a verdict of “Accidental Death”. The children, aged between seven and 17, were taken to Throstle Hall Farm before being transported by cart to their homes across Silkstone, Dodworth and Thurgoland.

The unanimous verdict of the inquest jury was accidental death by drowning. Required fields are marked *. The rain put out the boiler fire and the engine could not be used to take the men to the surface and a message was sent down the pit for all the miners to make their way to the pit bottom. Over 300ft underground, around 50 children and 33 coal getters were cutting and moving coal, eager to make up time and money following four days unpaid holiday for Queen Victoria’s coronation celebration. The children were washed off their feet and down to the door through which they had just passed. The children and people were frightened, not knowing what the matter was. The bodies had been viewed at their homes and Joseph Huskar who lived in Huskar, told the court what happened on that fateful day: Eleven of us were together and they all drowned but me.

Vol.2, p.144. This July marks the 180th anniversary of Barnsley's Huskar Pit Disaster; a tragedy which killed 26 children aged seven to 17 at Moorend Colliery in Silkstone Common. There are also Victorian flower vegetable gardens with some very unusual names and backgrounds. On that eventful day, the Lord sent forth his thunder, lightening, hail and rain, carrying devastation before them, and by a sudden eruption of water into the coal pits of R.C. This year, the 180th anniversary will be the biggest event ever hosted, involving the wider community including the two local primary schools. Children were cooped up inside for extremely long periods without regular rest or food breaks. At the bottom of the drift, there was an air door and the children went through this.

It was located in Nabs Wood, outside the village of Silkstone Common, in the then West Riding of Yorkshire. Amongst the 50 children working there that day was little Joseph Burkinshaw, just seven-years-old, who had only been there three days. The water met the others as they were coming up and drove them against the door where they were drowned. In other parts of the globe, children are involved in mining for minerals such as salt, diamonds and gems. Here, there will be information about points of interest along the way. The water washed the children down the day hole against a door, through which we had just come, and they were all drowned. Since the disaster, efforts have been made in the village to remember the lost children and acknowledge the tragedy which has become ingrained in Silkstone’s history.

The day the disaster occurred it was hot and sunny, but from 2 P.M. to 4 P.M. a violent thunderstorm raged with about two to two and a half inches of rain fall. Coffins and shrouds were provided by the Clarke family along with a memorial which was erected in the churchyard in 1841. Most of the pick-up points are our advertisers – they see how quick it flies from the stands. The day was hot and sunny but a violent thunderstorm raged from about 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Hailstones and about two to two and a half inches of rain fell.

An inquest was held at the Red Lion pub where a jury inspected the bodies; it wasn’t until after 11pm before any evidence was heard due to the sheer amount of children involved. Annals of Coal Mining. Clarke Esq., twenty six beings, whose names are recorded here were suddenly summoned to appear before their maker.

The Huskar disaster drastically affected the demographics of the local area with families deeply damaged by the loss of children.

The pit’s shaft was used to wind coal and workers to the surface using a steam engine, and a drift in Nabb Woods was used for ventilation. The day was hot and sunny but a violent thunderstorm raged from about 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Hailstones and about two to …

It was Wednesday 4th July 1838, a humid, sunny and warm summer day above the pit top. As the miners worked away down the pit, the water began to devastate the area above. But trust us, they go. It had a vertical shaft to the surface and a drift shaft (known as a "dayhole") leading to Nabs Wood. On 4 July 1838 heavy rainfall struck the area, disabling the winding engine on the vertical shaft. On Sunday 8th July, to close the commemoration, a welcome reception for the descendants of the 26 Huskar families and other guests will be held at All Saints Church at 1pm. Now that’s a lot of magazines.