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![Gresford Colliery [click for larger image]](sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/.pond/gresford_colliery1930s.jpg.w300h207.jpg)
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| Gresford Colliery as it appeared prior to The Disaster. ca. 1930 |
ER COF
AM Y 266 O LOWYR A GOLLODD
EU BYWYDAU
YN NHANCHWA
GWAITH GLO GRESFFORDD
MEDI 22ain 1934
IN MEMORY
OF THE 266 MINERS
WHO LOST THEIR LIVES
IN THE
GRESFORD
COLLIERY DISASTER
22nd SEPTEMBER 1934
At about 2am, in the morning on Saturday 22nd September 1934,
an explosion occurred in the Dennis Section of Gresford Colliery, just outside Wrexham, in Denbighshire, Wales. It was at
the time when many of the men might have been taking their break in the middle of the shift that had started the night before,
on Friday 21st September at 10-00pm. Some 800 children lost their fathers and more than 200 women lost their husbands and
sweethearts.
One of the most appalling disasters in the history of British mining
occurred at the Gresford Colliery, owned by the Westminster and United Collieries Group. The mine operated in two main
sections, the Dennis and the Slant. The explosion occurred in the Dennis, one of the deepest pits in the North Wales coalfields.
The Dennis Main Deep was ruptured by the explosions, and many miners would have been flung across the pit roads, some of them
dying instantly. Others were burnt alive, gassed, asphyxiated or crushed to death. There is no doubt that there were others
trapped alive with no means of escape who were the victims of later explosions and the release of more gas, and who were dead
before they were entombed forever by the sealing of the mine by their colleagues.
Only six men in the Dennis survived the explosion.
Within a few hours of the first explosion, more than 1000 men had
assembled at the pithead in the cold and pouring rain, waiting to help their comrades, sealed behind a wall of fire, two miles
from the bottom of the downtake shaft. This needs to be understood in the context of the times and the communications technology
of the day.
The Chronicle reporter writes "As the pit cage wheels turned, the
large crowds were scattered over the pit banks, and all over the colliery yard, and the highest bank was thick with silent
men standing in the rain, waiting and watching. The saddest confirmation was soon available. The wheels of the winding shaft
began their revolutions once more, and I saw two of the rescue party brought up - dead". There was a call for 20 volunteers,
and 100 men stepped forward. Nobody spoke. The women stood quietly in the rain.
Shortly after 8-00pm on Sunday night, the following official statement was issued
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Sunday
September 23 1934, 7-45pm "The attempt to overcome the fire in the main road has gone on continually since yesterday, but in spite of
very strenuous efforts, and although some progress has been made in this road, the dangerous quantity, and it is with great
reluctance that all parties - the management, the representatives of the miners and H.M Inspectors - have come to the conclusion
that no person can possibly be alive in the workings. "In these circumstances and in view of the increasingly grave risk to
the men combating the fire, it has been decided that it would not be right to continue to expose these workers to such serious
risk, and all persons have been withdrawn from the minefire has got a further hold in a road to the right, through which it
was hoped access would have been got to any possible survivors. "Today several explosions in bye
of the fire in the main road have occurred, and this afternoon they became more frequent and closer to where the men were
working on the fire. "The return air in both main returns is carrying carbon-monoxide in .
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H. DYKE DENNIS, EDWARD JONES, H.WALKER
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Some 260 men were entombed behind a wall of fire and for two days, brave men
fought to reach their entrapped colleagues - and then came the dreaded decision to withdraw the would-be rescuers and seal
the pit shaft with the men inside.... and so the inevitable happened ... the mine was sealed, and it stays so today ... more
than fifty years on ... the roads and shafts burnt and collapsed, forever entombing the bodies of 256 men and boys .... "don't
send your sweethearts down a dark, dreary mine ... they'll be lost like the souls in hell".
Sir Stafford Cripps lead the investigation into
the disaster, and this inquiry ended two and a half years later, when the report was tabled in Parliament. In 1937, proceedings
were started against the Manager of the mine, the under Manager, firemen individually and jointly against United and Westminster
Collieries Limited, and hearings commenced on 20 April 1937 at Wrexham County Petty Sessions Court.
The Gresford
Colliery continued to be worked, but not the Dennis Section. Mining at Gresford in the Slant District continued until 23 October
1973, but the pit was closed officially on economic grounds on 10 November 1973
Sep 22 2004
it being the 70th Anniversary
of the Gresford Mining Disaster
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from Roy Lambeth
thanks Roy!
this incredible find is to be found on
the Gathering the Jewels website, a
website for Welsh cultural history
those that died.
thanks to the folks
at the Welsh Coal Mines
website for this list
the BBC website.
they want your imput into
creating an archive
about the disaster
in this the 70th anniversary year
the web page on our
Rise Up Like The Sun website
The Real Price of Coal
once more massive thanks
go to Roy Lambeth, whose researches
into the Gresford Disaster
are second to none
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The Six Survivors
Names
Ted Andrew
Cyril Challinor
Thomas Fisher
Davy
Jones
Burt Samuels
Jack Samuels
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The Gresford Disaster
The epic track on the album
"Rise Up Like the Sun"
in 1978 tells the story of the
Gresford Disaster. John
Tams of
The Albion Band did the research
into the song, and found that
it had been written in the form
of the great, black-lettered,
broadside ballads to raise funds
for those who had been
widowed and orphaned
by the accident He also discovered
that the colliery band
was at
the pithead as the bodies
were being brought out,
playing to try and raise the spirits
of the wives, children and
friends who were waiting.
One "tune" the colliery band is
known to have played was
"How Sweet the Name of Jesus
Sounds",
which was written by D.H. Lawrence's
great-grandfather
(now there's a bit of historical trivia !).
John Tams decided to
fit the words to the hymn
and produce it as a ballad.
There is a live and slightly
longer version of The Gresford Disaster
on the Albion Band
Live in Concert album.
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| compiled by Stanley Williamson. Liverpool University Press 1999 |
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