Inquests were normal practice after an accident in a colliery, however, not all records survive. Happily, I have an original copy of the official report in to the Diglake Disaster, which was held at the Plough Inn on Ravens Lane. The report is an old document and difficult to scan, so the quality of the PDF below is not ideal, but hopefully it is mostly legible. Circumstances Attending The Inundation Of Audley Colliery, Staffordshire, On January 14th, 1895. The report was written by The Honourable Mark Frances Napier, Barrister At Law, and William Nicholas Atkinson, HM Inspector of Mines. Atkinson, born in Glamorgan, Wales and 44 at the time of the disaster, had plenty of experience of mining inquests. He had also gained his Certificate of Competency as a Manager of Mines in July 1873, aged just 21. Napier, born in Naples, Italy, was 43 at the time of the inquest. At the time of the flood, Diglake was operated by Messrs Rigby, with Frank Rigby as managing partner. He was held in high esteem by the men who worked the pit, even after the flood. It was well-known that an earlier pit existed close to Diglake, and that this pit was full of water, having been closed for over 50 years. Mr Rigby had a plan of this old pit (named Plan B at the inquest) which had been given to him by its operators. The plan should have been an accurate representation of the extent and position of the old workings. Mr Rigby's plan was to leave a barrier of some 60 yards between the new Diglake workings in the East 10 Foot Seam, and the abandoned pit. By his calculation, on the day of the flood, there was a distance of between 70 and 80 yards between them. However, certain aspects of the old plan were of concern to the coroner. Firstly, it had no date, and there were also some seams, drawn in a neutral colour, shown as part of the old workings which were not labelled. It was not clear whether this was an original, up to date plan of the old pit, or whether it was a copy. It was drawn up on a different scale to the plans of Diglake pit, but when the two plans were reduced to the same scale and overlaid upon each other, "the extraordinary and sinister fact was revealed that the end of the working shown in neutral tint on Plan B approached to within a few feet of the point at which Messrs Rigbys' workings had reached on the morning of January 14th". It seems most likely that the shot fired on the morning of January 14th by William Sproston, fireman, brought down the barrier between the old pit and the new workings, allowing thousands of gallons of water to rush into Diglake Pit. However, since it was never possible to enter the flooded areas of the pit to confirm the point at which the water broke through, this is pure speculation. To understand how this may have happened, view the following PDF files which were kindly compiled by DerekF, a gentleman with vast mining expertise: Diglake Strata & What Went Wrong These plans are taken from the Official Report (see above). They are large images so may take a few moments to download. Around 238 men and boys were at work in the pit that morning. Of these, over 100 were working in the West 8 Foot seam, 14 or so in the West 8 Foot Boundary workings, around 50 in the East 7 Foot seam (Elsby's area) and just 25 in the new Ten Foot seam. The water broke in from the Ten Foot seam, cutting off any escape from the East 7 Foot which was at a higher level and therefore unlikely to have been flooded. The roadways from both shafts were quickly blocked with debris - broken roof supports, waggons and mud. In the West 8 Foot Seam, at the lowest level of the pit, 12 men were killed - presumably drowned. In the new East 10 Foot Seam, 25 men were lost, and in the East Seven Foot Seam, all 40 men were lost. In the latter two cases, it is possible that these men were cut off by the rising water and died as the air became bad. Two bodies were recovered at the time of the flood - Henry Holland and Henry Rhodes. In the 1930s, miners working in a newer colliery close to Diglake broke through into the old pit. They recovered three bodies, none of which were identified at the time. They were buried under the memorial at Bignall End. The photograph below shows men recovering one of the three bodies in the 1930s.
The remaining 72 bodies still lie where they fell in the abandoned pit, beneath the streets of Ravens Lane and Bignall End. |
