This sad story from the pages of the Eccles and Patricroft Journal reminds of us a long-gone age when coal mining was booming in the North West of England.
Health and Safety laws may be much maligned, but it is worth noting that when first introduced, they really did save lives.
48-year-old John Edwards, from Burton Street, Pendlebury, was working at the Wheatsheaf Colliery in March 1916.
Alongside him were a young chap called George Clarke and another collier called Harry Robinson, packing freshly-dug coal into trollies for exportation.
Moments after Clarke left the coal face, at 9.20am on that fateful morning, he heard a strangled cry from Robinson.
Rushing back to his post he found that the roof had collapsed on top of John Edwards.
Both Clarke and Robinson frantically tried to dig their pal free for 15 to 20 minutes but he was buried under an estimated three tons of coal dirt.
It would have suffocated him to death within minutes which would be a terrible way to die.
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Pendlebury Colliery, on the north-east side of the A666 Bolton Road, was sunk in 1846 to access several rich coal seams some 1800ft underground.
By the 1910s it employed over 700 men, with over 150 men working on the surface to bring the coal out for industry.
An inquest was held at the Happy Land School in Pendlebury, led by the Deputy County Coroner Mr G.S. Lereche.
Clarke told the coroner that at the time of Edward’s demise there were fresh chalk marks on the roof.
These would have been drawn as an indication that it was safe to work there and there was no cracking in the roof or any indication that it would collapse.
We learn that Edwards was the chief man in the working party and had been at the coal face since 6am putting a prop in the jig brow.
He’d been advised at around 4am by colliery fireman John Vee that the ‘roofers’ near the brow were rather heavy and had suggested that timber props should be set up.
Naomi Edwards, John’s widow, took to the stand and told the inquest that her husband had left their Pendlebury home in the early hours of the morning and was in good spirits.
She would not see him again until his body was brought to her house at 12 noon for identification.
PC Hill told the inquest that he examined the body and found that there were no broken bones but only superficial bruises and death was clearly due to suffocation.
The jury found that no one was to blame and returned a verdict of accidental death.
The Coroner Mr Lereche expressed his sympathy towards Mrs Edwards in her sudden bereavement.
Working conditions in these coal mines could be highly dangerous with risk of death by roof fall or explosion a daily hazard.
Incredible as it may seem to modern workers, this was just considered part and parcel of the job.
Main image: Wheatsheaf Colliery © Irwell Valley Mining Project
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