xiv

Supplement to THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

July 2t, 1914.

near to it, as one had been previously found close to a
cog on a roadway further inbye. Smoking was not
allowed by the management, but the use of matches
was permitted to enable the lads to re-light the lanterns
used for travelling purposes.

At about 8 p.m. on June 16 a disaster occurred at Car
House Colliery, situated at Rotherham, in the county
of Yorkshire, worked by Messrs. John Brown and
Company Limited. It was caused by a roadway, known
as the Minimum Level, being driven in the Parkgate
seam at Car House Colliery too close to a pair of disused
dip headings from an adjoining colliery, named Aldwarke
Main, with the result that accumulated water in the
disused dips, to the rise of the level being driven,
suddenly burst through into Car House Colliery and
drowned eight persons. On July 29, about six weeks
after the disaster, Mr. Mottram was able to get access
to the heading, accompanied by Mr. C. L. Robinson and
Mr. H. M. Hudspeth, H.M. inspectors of mines. They

Fig. 16.—Plan of Heading at Car House
Colliery.

Car House Heading

— The seemed area shews the
'I amount of coal dbsfilaced

by water

found (1) that owing to a slight discrepancy in the
colliery plans the bottom of the Aldwarke dips was
about 3 ft. above the Car House heading, instead of a
few feet below it; (2) that the small 3ft. barrier which
thus existed had, by crush and the pressure behind it,
given way and caused the flooding; (3) that the inside
flank hole to the rise, though drilled within 14 ft. of the
face at an approximate angle of 37 degrees, and the
centre hole, though 19 ft. in advance, had just missed
the Aldwarke dips by inches.

The inspection, followed by the evidence obtained at
the inquest, led Mr. Mottram to consider how far the
precautions issued by the management had been carried
out. He found that by the orders of the agent, Mr. E.
B. Whalley, the manager arranged for a competent person
to keep in touch with the operations going on in the
heading. This arrangement was at once put into
operation, but was not thoroughly carried out, in
respect that when the deputy left the heading at
5.30 p.m. on the night of the disaster, the oncoming
deputy, Ackroyd, did not, until informed by a miner,
named Banns, as soon as he could be found that there
were signs of water, visit the headings. There was
thus a period of two hours during which time the
operation was not being supervised by a deputy.
It transpired at the inquest that as soon as Ackroyd
was informed of the changed conditions in the heading
by Banns, he at once telephoned to the manager, who
at once telephoned back that he was to get the men out
and also withdraw other men on the outbye side of the
heading, if on his return to the heading he found the
water showed the slightest sign of increasing. This was
not an absolute order to withdraw the men. Had the
order been more absolute it might have resulted in the
withdrawal of some of the men in time, though the delay
which had already occurred, through the unfortunate
absence of Ackroyd, was the real cause of the men not
being withdrawn in time to avert loss of life. The
distances stipulated by the Act for putting in bores
were not exceeded, though the number of flank boreholes
proved insufficient to protect the workings from a sudden
inrush of water. It was, no doubt, a mistake on the
part of the management to allow the heading to be
driven so near to the old Aldwarke dips, when they
were known to contain a dangerous accumulation of
water. The plans of the colliery showed the heading to
be quite close to the dips, and the prudent course, when
at that stage, would have been to place the bores in such
a position as to make it impossible for a road 12 ft. wide
to come in between the flank borehole and the coal face
without the bores tapping the water, or, better still,
to have approached the old dips from a road at
right angles, in which case a single bore, driven
from a considerable distance, could have tapped the
water entirely without risk to anyone. It is due to the
management to say that, had their arrangement as to
supervision of the Car House heading been strictly
carried out, the accident might have been avoided by
withdrawing the men on the first sign of danger, and
while the engineering of the work displayed an error of
judgment, it did not imply that the disaster was due to
negligence on the part of either the agent or manager
of the colliery.

During the year 44 lives were lost from haulage
accidents, as compared with 47 during 1912; 34 of the
accidents occurred to persons actually engaged in
haulage operations, six to persons while walking to and
from their working places, and four were miscellaneous.
Of the above, two persons were killed and nine injured
while illegally riding, and three persons were killed and
seven injured by going in front instead of behind tubs
while moving them by hand on inclined roads.

There have been no less than seven separate fatal acci-
dents, causing the loss of eight lives, due to electricity,
two being single fatalities on the surface and five (one a
double fatality at a coal-cutter) underground. Dealing
first with those which occurred on the surface, at West
Ardsley Colliery, Yorkshire, a derrick pole was being
erected in order to lift some material for the building of
a new hopper. When the pole was about half up, the

deceased was employed holdingone of the guide ropes clear
of a travelling chain, and through rope accidentally
making making contact with an electric switch con-
nected to a 5-horse power three-phase motor at 400 volts,
he got electrocuted. The colliery electrician stated at
the inquest that the switch had a wood cover before the
accident occurred, but, afterwards, the lid of the cover
was found wrenched off. There was no evidence to
show exactly when or how the cover was displaced, and
Mr. Nelson’s view, after visiting the colliery, was that if
a serious attempt had been made to protect the
apparatus from accidental contact when it was first
installed, the fatality would have been avoided. At
Grimethorpe Colliery, Yorkshire, a boy 13 years of age
was sent from the coal screens on to a platform at the
washer to assist another lad of the same age to clear
away some dirt into a wagon standing below the stage.
The platform consisted of a steel plate 10 ft. square,
with a dirt hole in the middle, the outer sides of the
platform being fenced by three rails to a height of about
4 ft. above the floor. About 2 ft. beyond one corner of
the platform and fence, and 4 ft. 6 in. above the floor,
bare copper wires to supply an arc lamp at 220 volts D.C.
were carried by insulators on a projecting bracket.
After the lads had cleared away the dirt, the deceased
boy dared his fellow-worker, Sellers, to put his hand on
the wires first. On hearing Sellers say he would not
touch them, he replied, “I’ll chance it,” and, without
saying anything, got on to the fence with both feet,
grasped the wire with his right hand, and received a
fatal shock. The accident illustrates the necessity there
is for enclosing wires which exist within the reach of
lads. The third accident occurred underground at
Dinnington Main Colliery, and resulted in the death of
a young man 21 years of age. The deceased was walking
along a girder inside an underground engine-house,
which was under repair, to convey oil to a motor man,
when he stumbled, and, while endeavouring to recover
his balance, he grasped a lighting wire above his head,
tore the wire out of a connector, and was electrocuted.
The wires had been temporarily placed for lighting
fitters engaged in installing a motor. The electricity
was generated at 500 volts A.C., but was probably about
440 where the accident occurred. As the wire was

^ABRASION

Fig. 17. — Sketch of
electric lamp, illus-
trating accident at the
Langwith Colliery.

covered or taped over, he probably received the shock
at the bare end as the wire slipped through his hand.
As the wires were not protected by a metallic covering
they were not in accordance with the regulations, and
had they been so enclosed the accident would have been
avoided. It was stated, however, that the wires were in
use before the new regulations came into force, and
were therefore exempted from the application of the
new regulations. This was so. The risk attending
lighting wires carrying an unnecessarily high voltage
has been often commented upon by H.M. inspectors of
mines, and transforming to low voltage has already
been adopted in many instances, and is now in vogue at
Dinnington.

The fourth fatality was also a lighting accident, and
occurred at Langwith Colliery, Nottinghamshire, where
electricity was supplied on two systems—200 volts
direct-current for lighting the pit bottom, and 550 volts
three-phase alternating current for motive power and
inbye lighting. The victim was a lad aged 14, who,
while standing talking to a companion, accidentally
touched the wire cage cover in which an electric lamp
was enclosed, and received a fatal electric shock. The
lamp was one of a series of four
supplied from 550 volt alternating /0g\
current. It had an iron base and (|(PROF>)) t
a glass outer globe, protected by
the wire cage referred to, and it
was fixed by a wood screw to a
prop, the lamp standing out about
10 in. horizontally from the prop
at a height of about 5 ft. 6 in. An
examination showed impaired insu-
lation of one of the leads, where it
had been in contact with the
metallic outer cover of the lamp,
and on the holder itself there was
evidence of fusion due to arcing.

As the iron base of the lamp cover was unearthed, all
all the metal work, including the lamp cage, was no
doubt alive at the time of the accident. At the inquest
the company argued that as the lamps in the circuit
were only 125 volts (4 in a series across 500 volts) there
was no need, under the Electricity Rules, to earth the
lamps’ fittings. This position was untenable and
irrelevant, for the pressure of a circuit is not determined
by the voltage of the apparatus connected to that
circuit, but by the voltage of the circuit itself. The
fifth accident occurred at a coal-cutting machine,
electrically driven, at Houghton Main Colliery, York-
shire. The cutter was of the disc type, driven by a
25-horse power motor, oil-immersed starter and reversing
switch system, 650 volts three-phase A.C. along un-
armoured cables 300 yds., and armoured cable beyond
to the gate-end box some 500 yds. further inbye. The
shaft cable armouring was connected to an earth plate
at the surface, and to inbye armoured cable by means
of an old wire rope. The trailing cable contained an
internal earth wire, connected at one end to the gate-
end switch, and at the other to the machine frame
through a centre plug. The deceased man, Joseph
Bains, was the authorised person in charge of the coal-
cutter. Some 30 yds. of holing had been done since the
start of the shift, and as this was finished the cutting
arrangements were made for running the machine back
along the face. Bains in front called out to a fellow-
worker named Docherty to switch on the current.
Docherty obeyed and received a shock. Bains then
took hold of the handle and was electrocuted. The
switch could be operated at either end, and when a
third man named Morgan attempted to switch off, he
also received a shock, and in consequence had to go to
the gate-end switch, 50 yds. away, in order to make the

machine dead. It seems that an “earth” on the machine
had been previously reported to the underground electri-
cian, who, on making repeated insulation tests, reported
that he could find no defect. The machine was then
allowed to continue at work until the accident occurred,
three hours later. When examined at the inquest
by Mr. Nelson, the electrician admitted that he had
known of an intermittent earth on the machine before,
and the tests he made would not indicate an inter-
, mittent earth. Mr. Nelson informed the jury that the
method of safeguarding against shock consisted of a
wire connection of low resistance between the outer
casing of the machine and earth. He further said that
the failure of the safeguard in this case was due to the
high resistance of the earth wire, and not to any lack of
continuity. He recommended that the voltage for
portable motors should be transformed to something
like 200 volts, in which case the risk of fatal shock
would be very much reduced. The sixth fatality
occurred at the New London Colliery, Nottinghamshire,
to a dataller named Alfred Taylor, aged 25. In the
main gate of the South Tupton seam there was a
a Thompson conveyor at work upon a face 140 yards in
length. This conveyor, working during the day, ran
backwards and forwards along the face ; it had to be
started, stopped and reversed about every 6 minutes,
and was worked by a 124-horse power motor, geared
down and situated in the cross-road, 100 yards back
from the face. The same motor also worked a coal-
cutter on the afternoon shift. The current supplied
was about 450 volts D.C. It seemed that when deceased
was running to knock the main switch out of the
conveyor switch gear, he lost his balance, and, through
falling with his head on to an earth wire, broke the
connection on the coal-cutter switch and at the same
time pulled out the main lead of the coal-cutter box.
This live cable came in contact with the metal of the
switchbox, and the current, by passing through Taylor
to the controller of the conveyor, which was still
earthed, electrocuted him. Had the joints and the
connections been properly made by lugs of sufficient
mechanical strength to resist rough usage, this accident
would have been avoided. Since the plant was installed
the use of lugs had been made compulsory by the new
Rules.

The seventh accident was the most serious of all, and
involved the loss of two lives at a coal-cutting machine,
electrically driven, at Moorgreen Colliery, Nottingham-
shiie, on August 15. The electrical supply was at
550 volts, three-phase, 50 periods per second. The coal-
cutter, of the Hird bar type, was situated 1| miles
inbye, and there was an estimated drop of 20 to 30
volts in that distance. Armoured cable was used up to
the gate-end box, and the earth from that point to the
machine was by means of an extra core or cores in the
trailer. When commencing work on the night of the
accident the men proceeded to rack the bar out of the
“ cut” with the haulage off, for the purpose of changing
the cutters. Trouble was enc wintered in switching on,
and as the handle of the controller would not pass what
the men termed the second “ notch ” (finger), the
machine only moved slowly. One of the men was sent
to report the matter to the foreman cutter, and on
returning to the machine, he found the two men whom
he had left there had been killed during his absence.
Spaulton, the coal-cutter driver, was found electrocuted
lying against the front end of the machine with his
shoulder against the face fender, while his fellow-worker
was found beneath the cutter bar of the machine,
mutilated beyond recognition by the bar. Sparks were
flying from the revolving bar, and also coming from the
plug b< x. Investigation by Mr. Nelson. H.M. electrical
inspector of mines, and Mr. Frazer, H.M. inspector
of mines, showed that the controller handle had been
forced from the first stop to the fourth, and that
presumably in the process a controller “finger” had
been broken off. This finger, when it had fallen to the
bottom of the controller, made contact between some
live part of the frame of the controller, thus making (in
the absence of an effective earth connection) the whole
machine live. The absence of an effective earth
connection was due to the fact that the earth conductor
had been allowed to become detached from the plug
connector of the trailing cable at the motor end. As
regards the ineffective earth connection, it looked at
first sight as though there had been a serious deficiency
in the upkeep of the electrical plant. But the evidence
at the inquest showed that the trailing cable plug in
question had been examined by the electrician on
August 8 and Rule 14 (1) (now General Regulation 131)
clearly imposes upon the man in charge of a coal cutter,
the duty of examining the trailing cable to see that it is
in proper working order before he begins his shift.
Mr. Nelson was of opinion that it was almost impossible
that the defect which was found to exist could have
been caused during the shift, and therefore the balance
of evidence inclines one to the view that the deceased
men themselves put into use a faulty cable.

In addition to the above-named fatalities, there were
nine non-fatal accidents causing injury to 10 persons, as
compared with 10 non-fatal accidents causing injury to
11 persons in the previous year. Of the nine non-fatals,
five occurred underground; one of these happened by
the bursting of a peep-hole glass 4 in. thick at a coal-
cutter, and the breakage was thought to be due to the
short circuiting of armature lugs which exploded
inflammable gas produced by the heating of a shellac
covering or varnish, which had been applied to the wires
in several coats inside the coal-cutter. It was subse-
quently found that methylated spirit had been mixed
with the shellac varnish. Another accident was due to
shook where the trailing cable of a coal-cutter was not
connected to earth. Of the surface accidents, one,
causing injury to two persons, was occasioned by a
spanner being dropped across live bus bars. The short
circuit thus caused drew out the switch, causing a large
flame which badly burnt both men.