The Times
Friday March 23 1962
16 Miners killed by explosion
Nurse goes down to aid injured.
From our northern correspondent
Burnley March 22 |
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Sixteen miners were killed by a coal explosion at Hapton Valley Colliery, Friday 23rd March 1962. A further 21 men were injured. On the evening of the disaster it was stated that one of them was very seriously ill and the condition of 13 others was serious.
The explosion occurred at one end of the 140-yard-long No.2 face of the Union seam, 250 yards below ground at the 100-year old pit.
"There was a terrible blast and we were all blown 10 or 15 yards along the face", said Mr. Jack Murray, aged 36, of Jockey Street, Burnley, senior man of the 90 fillers who were shovelling coal on their hands and knees. Other workers were close behind when the explosion happened at 9:47a.m.
"The next thing I knew was that I couldn't see a thing because of the thickness of coal dust in the air", said Mr. Murray, who suffered burns on his arms. "Some of the other 170 men working in the pit at the time were on the spot almost immediately with stretchers to carry out the wounded."
Gave Morphia
While two rescue teams raced from the coalfield's station at Boothstown, the pit's resident nursing sister, Mrs Maud Waggett, aged 45, put on overalls and helmet and went to the face to give morphia to wounded and dying men. Anne Harriss’s mum knew Maud , she went down the pit to administer first aid and morphia to the injured men who were trapped. I believe she was awarded a gong from the Queen to acknowledge her bravery but she was also "disciplined" by the NCB because at that time it was illegal for women to work down a mine.
Shortly afterwards she was joined by the pit doctor, Dr. Francis Halliwell, who had been called from another pit. He injected pain-relieving drugs and dressed the burns of the injured men.
"It was like a battlefield down there", said another collier, Mr. T. Allison, aged 24, of Irene Street, Burnley. "We were working a quarter of a mile away when our ears 'popped' and a rush of air filled the working with dust. Coal tubs 1,400 yards away were blown over."
Relatives were joined by the Bishop of Burnley, The Rt. Rev. G. Holderness, and other clergy as they clustered in the yard of the pit they know as " Happy Valley" for four hours until the last of the victims were brought out along a 1,800-yard drift roadway.
All those killed were from Burnley, among them a miner whose wife is expecting a fourth child, two young men who were to have been married soon, and a 16-year-old boy whose job it was to take supplies to the coal face. Relatives of the dead were taken to the pit that night by police to identify the bodies of the men.
Quick Response
Mr. J. Anderton, chairman of the divisional board, said rescue, police and ambulance workers could not have responded more quickly to the tragedy.
It is the first in the Lancashire coalfields since 1959, when five men lost their lives in an accident at Bickershaw Colliery, and the biggest in the division since nationalization.
An investigation into the cause of the explosion was started tonight. A mobile laboratory was set up at the pithead and samples were brought from the coalface. Below ground a team of officials made a technical examination.
Killed
Christopher William Brown |
Age 55 |
Driller |
Samson Henry Bullen |
Age 44 |
Deputy |
James Cummings |
Age 19 |
Supplies Man |
Robert Dunston |
Age 26 |
Ripper |
Stanley Faulkes |
Age 41 |
Filler |
John William Halstead |
Age 53 |
Deputy/Shotfirer |
George Hartley |
Age 32 |
Mechanic |
Raymond Ernest Howarth |
Age 20 |
Electrician |
Tom Isherwood |
Age 49 |
Face Scraper Operator |
Donald Stewart McGoogan |
Age 28 |
Mechanic |
Garry Pickles |
Age 22 |
Electrician |
John Robinson |
Age 24 |
Filler |
Donald Rushton |
Age 33 |
Ripper |
Robert Shuttleworth |
Age 33 |
Filler |
Ronnie Anthony Taylor |
Age 16 |
Supplies Man |
Benjamin Wals |
Age 25 |
Filler |
Died From Injuries
John Grieg Barritt |
Age 23 |
Electrician |
Joseph Forrest |
Age 17 |
Supplies Man |
Peter Tinsley |
Age 16 |
Apprentice Electrician |
Seriously Injured
James Allen |
Age 48 |
Conveyor Maintenance Man |
Neville Edward Barker |
Age 24 |
Filler |
Brian Bullen |
Age 23 |
Filler |
George Dyson |
Age 34 |
Filler |
Alan Fisk |
Age 24 |
Filler |
Brian Greenwood |
Age 23 |
Filler |
John Heywood |
Age 24 |
Filler |
Joseph Madden |
Age 46 |
Filler |
Jack Myers |
Age 35 |
Filler |
John Pinder |
Age 28 |
Filler |
Robert Pinder |
Age 25 |
Filler |
Henry Dransfield Walker |
Age 39 |
filler |
George Walsh |
Age 21 |
Filler |
More Information
Dr. Francis Halliwell started off as a miner, was a Chindit during the war, became an officer in the army and gained the Military Cross.
www.chindits.info/Awards/MCHalliwell.htm. He met his wife in the army; she was an officer in the Queen Alexander’s Royal Army Nursing Service. Her father encouraged him to train as a doctor.
He did that and eventually returned to the NCB as an occupational physician. My mother held him in very high regard, she told me a little of his bravery and the fact that he never forgot his roots. He would frequently go and have lunch in the canteen with "the men" - he understood their work and its effects as he had been there, done that and got the wounds to prove it!