An afternoon’s saunter on South Gare, where the Tees River meets the sea. A remarkably high tide, a strong westerly breeze, and a rainbow glistening on the roaring waves. Or should I perhaps refer to that as a ‘spray bow’?
Cobwebs duly blown away, I thought about how I could relate Britain’s worst pit disaster, which happened on this day in 1913, to today’s photo. In the end, I decided I couldn’t.
On this particular day, deep in the bowels of the Universal Colliery in Senghenydd, not far from Glamorgan, around 700 miners were hard at it during their morning shifts, toiling 2,000 feet beneath the Earth’s surface. Just as the clock showed 8.10 am, a cataclysmic explosion roared through the deep pit. It all started with a spark from an electric bell, setting off a deadly cocktail of methane gas and coal dust, known among miners as “firedamp.”
The devastating blast claimed the lives of 439 men and boys, and one more perished during the ensuing rescue operations. To this day, it stands as the worst coal mining disaster in British history and ranks as the sixth worst worldwide.
That very same day, the good folk of Teesside read about the catastrophe in the Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, a story which ran for several days1‘500 Men Rescued | Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough | Tuesday 14 October 1913 | British Newspaper Archive’. 2023. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000159/19131014/156/0008> [accessed 14 October 2023].
In the tight-knit community of Senghenydd, not a soul was spared from the sorrow. The tragedy left 542 children without fathers and over 200 women as widows. An appalling 90 teenagers met their untimely end, with the youngest victims a mere 14 years old. Reportedly, one chapel in the village lost a staggering 60% of its male congregation.
Such ghastly disasters, alas, were an all-too-frequent occurrence in the UK’s coalfields during coal mining’s heyday. And statistically speaking, coal mining was the most dangerous of all industries.
In the aftermath, the coroner’s inquest delivered a verdict of accidental death. Subsequently, the colliery’s manager faced prosecution for 17 violations of the Coal Mines Act, and the company itself was slapped with four charges. Regrettably, most of these charges were ultimately dropped.
In the end, the manager received a paltry fine of £24, and the company was penalised £10, with an additional £5 and 5 shillings in costs. As the Merthyr Pioneer newspaper reported, “Miners’ lives at 1s 1¼d each” – the modern-day equivalent of a mere 5½p per dead miner2Curtis, Ben. 2023. ‘Senghenydd Colliery Disaster: How Britain’s Worst Mining Tragedy Revealed the True Price of Coal’, The Conversation <https://theconversation.com/senghenydd-colliery-disaster-how-britains-worst-mining-tragedy-revealed-the-true-price-of-coal-212316> [accessed 14 October 2023].
While those offshore wind turbines near Redcar might not win any beauty contests and could be seen as an eyesore on the horizon, the Senghenydd mining catastrophe stands as an enduring reminder of the genuine cost of coal, that fossil fuel which played the major part in ushering prosperity into the United Kingdom. Prosperity, which we enjoy today.
- 1‘500 Men Rescued | Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough | Tuesday 14 October 1913 | British Newspaper Archive’. 2023. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000159/19131014/156/0008> [accessed 14 October 2023]
- 2Curtis, Ben. 2023. ‘Senghenydd Colliery Disaster: How Britain’s Worst Mining Tragedy Revealed the True Price of Coal’, The Conversation <https://theconversation.com/senghenydd-colliery-disaster-how-britains-worst-mining-tragedy-revealed-the-true-price-of-coal-212316> [accessed 14 October 2023]
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