Loss of Six Lives
Gloucester Citizen – Wednesday 06 March 1878
Loss of Six Lives
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Less than Six Months from the Mining Disaster at Dixon’s Pit, another Accident and Loss of Six Lives. Blantyre, Tuesday Evening. This afternoon an overwinding |
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Their names are:
Patrick Houghine, 10, Ann street, Burnbank, Hamilton
Martin Houghine, his son
Patrick Hopkins, a lodger with Houghine
Thomas Murdoch, Dixon-street, Stonefield, Blantyre
Robert his son;
and Michael Crime, Gardners-place, High Blantyre.
No. 3 Pit is one of the pits that exploded in October last, when 209 lives were lost.
By the beginning of the year everything was in order. It is 153 fathoms down to the lowest seam, there being beneath this a “sump,” or well, eighteen feet deep, filled within a foot of the top with water. The shaft consists of two divisions, one double cage being fitted into each, and the winding apparatus is that usually employed at mines. Cages containing coal are wound to the surface in from 33 to 30 seconds but when men compose the freight about double that time is occupied.
Arthur Cleland, the day shift engineman, had, as far as can be ascertained, exchanged the necessary signal with the bottomer, when he began to wind to the top a cage containing seven men. Instead of stopping the engine when the indicator pointed to the cage having reached the “plates,” where the men usually get off, he by overwinding carried it on to the cross-beams where the cage was wrecked, and six of the seven men which it contained were precipitated down the shaft, only one escaping. His name is Robert Allan, or Garrity, living at Stonefield. He was unhurt, having only suffered from the shock. A young man named Tracey, who had ascended with the previous cage, saw the accident and gave the alarm.
The bodies have been recovered from the “sump,” or well below.
Source: http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
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