The Oaks Mine Christmas Disaster

by David A. Jacinto

December 12th, 1866,  began not unlike most winter days in the village of Hoyle Mill. Two weeks before Christmas, a foggy mist drifted through the valley and gripped the bitterly cold and wet morning. Enthusiasm for Christmas  was running high.  Most men and boys in the village had been putting in overtime at the Oaks Coal Mine south of Barnsley to make a little extra Christmas money. 

That morning, well before dawn,  the coal miners shared a final word over tea and crumpets, bangers and mash, or blood sausage, kissed their wives and mothers goodbye, gave each of the little ones a warm hug, and began the short walk from Hoyle Mill to the Oaks Colliery.

 On the darkened path, they were joined by the other collies, chatting, laughing, and sharing jokes in casual conversation. Passing through the gates and into the Oaks yard, they headed toward the cage to go down the shaft into the mine, just as they did every morning.

One by one, each cage lowered down the telescoping shaft, stopping periodically to deposit miners at various levels. Each disembarking level led into a vast web of interconnecting tunnels, smaller shafts and mining chambers. The last of the miners reached the bottom at a thousand feet below ground, where the cage door was pulled open for the final time. They stepped onto the rough-hewn floor of the landing in the faint light. This brotherhood of miners shared their final morning pleasantries, smiling, laughing, and even singing Christmas songs as they each lit their oil lamps and headed off into the various corners of the mine to dig their own graves where they would spend eternity.        

***

The first trembling upheaval arrived late that clear blue morning. The cruel whip of nature bringing a sudden crack of doom to the quiet tenor of innocence as the blast  fought its way to the surface. 

In his office, Thomas Diamond, the mine superintendent, jerked to attention with the thunderous roar of the explosion. He ran to the window to see a monstrous skyrocket of flames and smoke shoot up in every direction from the main entrance to the mine. Bricks disintegrated into powder. Great ascending clouds of chalk, coal, rock, earth, and debris spouted up into the sky and began to fall back in a “black bloody snow”. The hundred-year-old cage support beams went up like matchsticks in the blaze. It seemed the entire surface of the earth had been torn off, burying four hundred miners in the pit.

The massive tree in the yard had been uprooted, fat tendrils of roots rose up from the ground looking like an upside down tree. The fires pooled and strutted, flowing from structure to tree as smoke chased ash into the sky. The appetite for oxygen was such that leaves and branches were sucked into the flames and flashed their disappearance in an instant.

Mr. Diamond rushed out of his office into the wings of the hot breeze cutting through the cold morning. There was the sound of pandemonium. The smell of smoke and burning flesh. The taste of coal dust. Men yelling. The crackle of burning timbers. Moans of pain and screams of agony. Adrenaline pumping, Diamond leaped into the chaos, ignoring the smoke and flames, seemingly contemptuous of the danger. The main entrance to the mine that was supposed to lay before him was no more. The entire yard was unrecognizable. He had been through mining explosions before, but nothing like this. It looked like a war zone after a daylong cannon raid. 

Driven to a rush of heightened awareness, Diamond seemed to have a clear vision of just what needed to be done. He knew it was important not to lose his head—to take immediate but thoughtful, deliberate action, carefully planning the dangerous rescue of the men still down in the pit. 

With his right hand cupped over his eyes to see through the heavy smoke and debris drifting back to earth, he held a kerchief to his nose. He searched through the smoky haze to commandeer rescuers from the miners who were scurrying in all directions in terror. He called out and the men jumped at his orders, seemingly thankful to have someone take charge and tell them where to go and what to do.

Miners boiled up from the bowels of the mine and toward him, away from the blazing fires of burning colliery timbers. They reeled in shock and confusion, some calling out in agony, some held up by other men, some saying nothing at all. Wherever Diamond looked, torn and broken bodies and injured animals were shaking in the grip of death, while the uninjured tried in vain to comfort the dying. One miner walked toward Diamond, staring dull-eyed at him without a word. It took a moment to register, the man was near naked, his skin burnt grey.

     Over two days the rescue would continue in an attempt to save as many as possible from the firedamp explosions, and following afterdamp asphyxiation. Almost every man and boy from the surrounding villages over the age of ten had been down in that mine. There was not a single family in Hoyle Mill who had not lost someone. Three-hundred and eighty-four men and boys would die, including twenty-six rescuers in a blast on the second day of the rescue attempt. That blast would close down the mine forever, leaving most of the dead buried for eternity. For these miners' families, there would be no more caresses from a husband, kisses from a father, no more “I love you, Mam” from a son, no more childhood memories of a brother.  

The Oak's irresponsible operators and massively wealthy landowners who had not provided proper ventilation or other safety measures recommended by inspectors would not be held liable in any way. They would not even provide enough money to bury the dead, let alone provide for food, rent, or even survival of these destitute families. Thousands of  family members would  be left with no way to even keep warm during their cold winter nights of despair after the disaster.

The 1866 Oaks Mine Christmas disaster that killed 384 men and boys was not the first on this seam of coal. In the previous twenty years there had been over five-hundred other minors who had lost their lives. In 1845, six men and boys lost their lives from a firedamp explosion and afterdamp asphyxiation at the Oaks; in 1847, seventy-three men and boys were killed, again firedamp and afterdamp at the Oaks; in 1849 seventy-five at Darley Main on the same seam; in 1851, twelve more were killed at the Oaks, again for the same reason; in 1851, fifty-two were killed at Warnervale. In 1852, twelve more were killed at the Elsecar colliery, firedamp and afterdamp. In 1857, firedamp and afterdamp killed 189 men and boys on the adjacent Lundhill Colliery, and fifty-nine at Edmonds in 1862. 

These avoidable disasters all along this same seam of coal occurred mostly because of poor ventilation and deplorable safety deficiencies. And yet the operators and fabulously wealthy Landlord were not held liable in any way for these deaths, inciting the miners' families to demand an inquest into the Oaks Christmas disaster. That inquest was held in 1867 and would stir interest all across the United Kingdom, rousing Queen Victoria to push for change in  laws governing coal mining and other industrial revolution operations. The Oaks Christmas Disaster and the fascinating historical events that followed are all covered in a well documented, historical fiction recently released by Simon & Schuster. “Out of the Darkness”, is based on the true story of a nineteenth century child coal miner rising out of the ashes of poverty and tragedy to change the world. It’s a story of poverty, sacrifice, greed, love, faith and the courage to push aside fear and jump into the refiner’s fire where the finest qualities of character are forged. It’s a story of the great sweep of human desire for freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of justice.

 

David A. Jacinto

Author of: Out of The Darkness

Culross - The Burgh That Time Forgot

by Annie Whitehead

Culross, on the Fife Coast in Scotland, is familiar to some as one of the locations for the hugely popular series, Outlander. This is because, oddly, it looks as if it has never aged and does, indeed, look more like a film set than a working town. It's a complicated story...

Culross (pronounced koo-ross) sits nestled on the banks of the Firth of Forth, on the east coast of Scotland, in the ancient kingdom of Fife. It's been used as a location for Kidnapped (1971), starring Michael Caine, The Little Vampire (2000) starring Richard E Grant, The 39 Steps (2008), starring Rupert Penry-Jones and Captain America (2011) starring Chris Evans, as well as the above-mentioned Outlander, starring Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan and based on the books by Diana Gabaldon. The painted cottages, and the immaculate cobbled streets, present a picture of a town seemingly unchanged, as if fixed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

But its roots go back to the sixth century, when it was a religious centre, founded by St Serf.  The story goes that St Serf came across a young woman on the seashore with her newly-born son. She and her baby had been cast out in a boat by her father in the hope that mother and child would drown. The child was Kentigern, who in time became Serf's pupil. Kentigern travelled and eventually settled in what became Glasgow, where the cathedral is dedicated to him, using his more familiar name of Mungo. There are the remains of a chapel dedicated to St Mungo in Culross, too, founded in 1503.

It was the monks who first began mining the area, and it was mining which was to become the key to the prosperity of Culross. With plenty of coal, and the Firth of Forth acting as a watery highway, trade was easy and profitable. Such was the reputation of Culross and its mining industry that the Culross Chalder (a chalder being an old Scottish measure) became the standard Scottish measure for weighing coal.

Coal mining was not the only industry, though, and salt panning gave rise to stories of Culross being a smoky town, due to the sea water being run into large, shallow pans, and then evaporated by fires made from the burning of inferior coal. With up to 50 salt pans in the area, its reputation for being a smoky place seems justified.

There was also a healthy iron industry, by which the legend grew up, that the ironsmiths of Culross invented the iron 'girdle' for Robert I (the Bruce), who is reported to have ordered soldiers camped near the town to be supplied with iron plates for toasting their oatcakes.

In 1575, Sir George Bruce, a descendant of Robert the Bruce, was granted the lease of the abbey's collieries. He was more than simply a rich man; he was responsible for many innovations, including the 'Egyptian Wheel', turned by horses and operating thirty-six buckets on a chain to drain the mine. Sir George made it possible for men to work at a depth of 240 ft, compared with the 30 ft managed by the monks. It was recorded that while the miners were digging the coal, hundreds of ships were sailing over their heads.

James VI visited the mine, and was a guest at Sir George's fine new house, which he called 'the Palace'. James was so impressed*, he granted the burgh royal status. As a Royal Burgh, Culross could take part in lucrative import and export trade. The town was made.

The 'Palace'

But in 1625, a great storm damaged the under-sea mine workings, and shortly afterwards, Sir George died. Over the next two hundred years, the town's industries slowly died, too. After the flooding and the collapse of the mining industry, the focus shifted to the manufacture of boots and shoes, and there is still a building in the town called the Tanhouse. The boots and shoes were exported to the American colonies, but after the revolution/war of independence in 1776, this industry also had its fate sealed. A new foundry in Falkirk, producing cheap cast-iron, removed the market for Culross's more labour-intensive and more expensive wrought-iron. The town began to fade and fail.

But in the 1930s, the Palace was bought by the National Trust for Scotland, which went on, in association with its Little Houses Improvement Scheme, to purchase and renovate many of the town's buildings, so that although the place looks a little like a museum, it remains a fully functioning, working town.

The remains of the abbey, founded in 1217, can still be seen in the grounds of the current abbey, and the Mercat Cross, dating from 1588, is still on show, although only the base is original.

The Townhouse has had a number of uses. It was a tollbooth for many years, witches - or rather, women accused of being witches - were kept imprisoned here, and the building was also used as a meeting place for the town council. An exhibition inside the Townhouse shows photographs of the houses when they were dilapidated and in danger of collapse.

The National Trust for Scotland's renovation project has rebuilt the town and in so doing, has captured a snapshot of the seventeenth century, one which can be enjoyed by those interested in history, and which would otherwise have been destroyed if the town, like so many others in Britain, had simply been rebuilt and the houses replaced with newer buildings.

~~~~~~~
*Initially, James' visit did not auger well for the town. Taken on a tour of the mine, he emerged at the seaward end and, finding himself surrounded by water, began to panic. Shouting 'Treason!', he had to be hurriedly reassured that all was well, that this was a fact of this kind of mining, and that his life was not in danger, nor any harm meant to his royal person.

[all photographs by and copyright of the author]
~~~~~~~~~~

Annie Whitehead is an author and historian, and a member of the Royal Historical Society. Her first two novels are set in tenth-century Mercia, chronicling the lives of Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, who ruled a country in all but name, and Earl Alvar who served King Edgar and his son Æthelred the Unready who were both embroiled in murderous scandals. Her third novel, also set in Mercia, tells the story of seventh-century King Penda and his feud with the Northumbrian kings. She is currently working on a history of Mercia for Amberley Publishing, to be released in 2018.
Amazon Page
Website
Blog

Tudor and Stuart Energy Crisis - Coal

by Deborah Swift

In the period 1500 - 1700 England made the transition from a wood-burning nation to a coal burning nation. This transition affected almost everything about domestic and manufacturing life.

The poulation of England and Wales had nearly doubled between the years of 1500 and 1690. Immense pressure was put on the woodlands to provide wood for building, for manufacture, for the new printing industry - paper and books - and for fuel.

London, one of the largest cities in Europe, was a boom town and multiplied eight-fold, from 60,000 people in 1534 to 530,000 in 1696, so that although only one in ten was a town dweller in the early sixteenth century, one in four were by the end of the seventeenth century. The timber to build new dwellings (mostly wood-framed in this period) and their necessary winter fires for cooking and heating put even greater strain on the forests, until deforestation was a real issue.

In places where coal seams were near the surface and occurred naturally, coal was burnt and had been ever since Roman times, but the idea of collecting it and sending it elsewhere was not considered until Tudor times. This was because the idea of taking earth or minerals away was not part of the medieval mind-set. Mining was regarded as rape of the land. Unlike ploughing or sowing the land, taking parts of it away were seen as robbing the local people of their subsistence - land being equated to wealth and food production.

Tudor Mining Coat

This idea changed with Agricola's publication of a book on mining, which equated mining to opening a fruit to see the goodness within. However, this idea only applied to metals such as tin and copper ore, and not to coal. It took a dose of inflation plus a shortage of wood to make people turn to coal as a last resort.

Coal produces smoke and fumes and whilst there was wood, it was considered too dirty and overlooked as a source of fuel. In Tudor times coal began to be shipped short distances and used by the poor as an alternative to wood, but by the early 17th century, the shortage of decent timber for shipbuilding seemed to threaten Britain's existence, and coal became the only viable alternative for heating and manufacture. A royal proclamation of 1615 laments the former wealth of 'Wood and Timber,' but by then mines had begun to provide employment, and there were even railways with horse-drawn carriages to bring the coal to the docks.

Stuart Mining Machinery

By the time of the English Civil War (1640's) Londoners were dependent on 'sea coal' to keep warm. The surviving records of the customs officials at Newcastle-upon-Tyne show a continuous and rapid growth in the shipments of coal between 1550 and 1700. Ten thousand men worked the colliery at Newcastle, either underground or on the four hundred or so vessels moored in the Tyne river to ferry the coal around England.

Imports to London grew even faster, probably more than thirtyfold. A contemporary of John Evelyn, the diarist, described the London smog:

Such a cloud of sea-coal, as if there be a resemblance of hell upon earth, it is in this volcano in a foggy day; this pestilent smoak, which corrodes the very yron and spoils all the movables, leaving a soot on all things that it lights; and so fatally seizing on the lungs of the inhabitants, that cough and consumption spare no man.

New technology was necessary in the wake of this new fuel which burned so hot. Methods of firing glass and pottery had to be developed to protect the products from direct contact with the burning coals. After about 1610 glass began to be manufactured with mineral fuel, followed by the cementation process for converting wrought iron into steel and a method of baking bricks for building. Further advances occurred in the brewing industry, where coal fires were used to dry malt, and by the late seventeenth century it became possible to smelt the lead, copper and tin ores of Britain with coal.

I find this historical background fascinating - how the introduction of new fuel produces such a far-reaching effect on a population, in a similar way to the advent of electricity in a later era.

Links:
John Adair - By The Sword Divided 

Peter Ackroyd - London: The Biography
Paper on Coal: John U. Nef - Scientific American http://nature.berkeley.edu/er100/readings/Nef_1977.pdf
Tudor Mining Coat: http://www.leics.gov.uk/revealed_objects_tudorminingcoat.htm
Stuart Mining Machinery: http://cookit.e2bn.org/historycookbook/33-340-Life-in-stuarts.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My 17th century novels set in the earliest Industrial Revolution (the coal rather than steam powered one!) can be found on my website www.deborahswift.com

Amazon