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Diglake Colliery Disaster
The Diglake Colliery Disaster (also known as the Audley Colliery Disaster), was a coal-mining disaster at what was Audley Colliery in Bignall End, North Staffordshire, on 14 January 1895. A flood of water rushed into the mine and caused the deaths of 77 miners. Only three bodies were recovered, with efforts to retrieve the dead hampered by floodwater. 73 bodies are still entombed underground. Background Diglake Colliery was located in the village of Bignall End in Staffordshire. Various mining workings took place from 1733 onwards to 1854 when the mine was abandoned as it was not connected to a canal or railway, which made it uneconomical for the outward transportation of coal. In the 1890s, another mine was sunk near to the old colliery workings and was known Audley Colliery. It had three shafts (No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3, , and respectively). No. 3 shaft was formerly part of the works for the adjacent Boyles Hall Colliery. Audley Colliery was located just to the east of what wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bignall End
Bignall End is a village in Staffordshire, England, near Junction 16 of the M6 motorway. History It is a part of the civil parish, parish of Audley Rural, which comprises Audley, Bignall End, Wood Lane, Miles Green, Halmer End and Alsagers Bank. There are two public houses, The Swan (or "the duck") on Chapel Street and the Plough on Ravens Lane. Bignall End Working Men's Club was demolished and had residential accommodation built on it. Audley Football Club is also in Bignall End. In 1851, Bignall End was described as having "a number of scattered houses and cottages, one mile E of Audley, and several collieries". In January 1895, an inrush of water into Diglake Colliery Disaster, Audley Colliery resulted in the deaths of 77 miners. Cricket Three England cricketers, Jack Ikin, Bob Taylor (cricketer), Bob Taylor and Kim Barnett have played for Bignall End Cricket Club See also *Listed buildings in Audley Rural References External links {{authority control V ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Staffordshire
Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands County and Worcestershire to the south and Shropshire to the west. The largest settlement in Staffordshire is Stoke-on-Trent, which is administered as an independent unitary authority, separately from the rest of the county. Lichfield is a cathedral city. Other major settlements include Stafford, Burton upon Trent, Cannock, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Rugeley, Leek, and Tamworth. Other towns include Stone, Cheadle, Uttoxeter, Hednesford, Brewood, Burntwood/Chasetown, Kidsgrove, Eccleshall, Biddulph and the large villages of Penkridge, Wombourne, Perton, Kinver, Codsall, Tutbury, Alrewas, Barton-under-Needwood, Shenstone, Featherstone, Essington, Stretton and Abbots Bromley. Cannock Chase AONB is within the county as well as parts of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Staffordshire
The federation of Stoke-on-Trent was the 1910 amalgamation of the six Staffordshire Potteries towns of Burslem, Tunstall, Stoke-upon-Trent, Hanley, Fenton and Longton into the single county borough of Stoke-on-Trent. An anomaly in the history of English local government, this was the first union of its type and the only such event to take place until the 1960s. The 1910 federation was the culmination of a process of urban growth and municipal change that started in the early 19th century. Little interaction between the separate settlements occurred until the 18th century when the pottery industry began to expand rapidly. By the early 19th century, initial steps had been made to ensure greater co-operation between the Potteries towns over the issue of law and order. The county plan of 1888 made the first attempts to form the six towns into one county borough, following an act of Parliament that restructured the county system and created the administrative county of Staffordshi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Staffordshire Railway
The North Staffordshire Railway (NSR) was a British railway company formed in 1845 to promote a number of lines in the Staffordshire Potteries and surrounding areas in Staffordshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire and Shropshire. The company was based in Stoke-on-Trent and was nicknamed ''The Knotty''; its lines were built to the standard gauge of . The main routes were constructed between 1846 and 1852 and ran from Macclesfield via Stoke to Colwich Junction joining the Trent Valley Railway, with another branch to Norton Bridge, just north of Stafford, and from Crewe to Egginton Junction, west of Derby. Within these main connections with other railway companies, most notably the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), the company operated a network of smaller lines although the total route mileage of the company never exceeded . The majority of the passenger traffic was local although a number of LNWR services from Manchester to London were operated via Stoke. Freight traffic was mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Firedamp
Firedamp is any flammable gas found in coal mines, typically coalbed methane. It is particularly found in areas where the coal is bituminous. The gas accumulates in pockets in the coal and adjacent strata and when they are penetrated the release can trigger explosions. Historically, if such a pocket was highly pressurized, it was termed a "bag of foulness". Name Damp is the collective name given to all gases (other than air) found in coal mines in Great Britain and North America. As well as firedamp, other damps include ''blackdamp'' (nonbreathable mixture of carbon dioxide, water vapour and other gases); whitedamp (carbon monoxide and other gases produced by combustion); poisonous, explosive ''stinkdamp'' (hydrogen sulfide), with its characteristic rotten-egg odour; and the insidiously lethal ''afterdamp'' (carbon monoxide and other gases) which are produced following explosions of firedamp or coal dust. Etymology Often hyphenated as fire-damp, this term for a flammabl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of List of monarchs in Britain by length of reign, any previous British monarch and is known as the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British Parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India. Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After the deaths of her father and grandfather in 1820, she was Kensington System, raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Medal For Lifesaving
The Albert Medal for Lifesaving was a British medal awarded to recognize the saving of life. It has since been replaced by the George Cross. The Albert Medal was first instituted by a royal warrant on 7 March 1866. It was named in memory of Prince Albert and originally was awarded to recognize saving life at sea. The original medal had a blue ribbon " (16 mm) wide with two white stripes. A further royal warrant in 1867 created two classes of Albert Medal, the first in gold and bronze and the second in bronze, both enamelled in blue, and the ribbon of the first class changed to 1 " (35 mm) wide with four white stripes. The medal was made of gold (although early examples are gold and bronze), which was enameled blue. There were miniatures of all four types (two classes each for sea and land, with the gold awards believed to be gilt. The first recipient of the medal was Samuel Popplestone, a tenant farmer, who on 23 March 1866 helped to rescue four men after the cargo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ignacy Jan Paderewski
Ignacy Jan Paderewski (; – 29 June 1941) was a Polish pianist and composer who became a spokesman for Polish independence. In 1919, he was the new nation's Prime Minister and foreign minister during which he signed the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I. A favorite of concert audiences around the world, his musical fame opened access to diplomacy and the media, as possibly did his status as a freemason, and charitable work of his second wife, Helena Paderewska. During World War I, Paderewski advocated an independent Poland, including by touring the United States, where he met with President Woodrow Wilson, who came to support the creation of an independent Poland in his Fourteen Points at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, which led to the Treaty of Versailles.Hanna Marczewska-Zagdanska, and Janina Dorosz, "Wilson – Paderewski – Masaryk: Their Visions of Independence and Conceptions of how to Organize Europe," ''Acta Poloniae Historica'' (1996), Issue 73, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UK Coal
UK Coal Production Ltd, formerly UK Coal plc, was the largest coal mining business in the United Kingdom. The company was based in Harworth, in Nottinghamshire. The company was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. The successor company that contains the former property division, Harworth Group, is still listed on the London Stock Exchange. History The predecessor company of UK Coal was founded by Richard J. Budge in 1974 as ''RJB Mining''. In 1994, following the privatisation of the UK mining industry, it grew fivefold with the acquisition of British Coal's core activities. It changed its name to UK Coal in 2001 after the retirement of its founder, having acquired UK Coal plc. Former operations At year end 2008, the company estimated coal reserves and resources of 105 Mt at the mines, of which 45 Mt was accessible under existing five year mining and investment plans. Its most important customers were electricity generators. In 2010 the company proposed a series of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minnie Pit Disaster
The Minnie Pit disaster was a coal mining accident that took place on 12 January 1918 in Halmer End, Staffordshire, in which 155 men and boys died. The disaster, which was caused by an explosion due to firedamp, is the worst ever recorded in the North Staffordshire Coalfield. An official investigation never established what caused the ignition of flammable gases in the pit. Background Minnie Pit, which is named after Minnie Craig, the daughter of one of the owners, W.Y. Craig, was opened in 1881 in the small village of Halmer End, Newcastle-under-Lyme. At deep, it had been one of the most profitable pits in the North Staffordshire coalfields because it mined five thick seams of good quality coal. It was the downcast shaft for the Podmore Hall Colliery, part of a wider industrial business that mined coal at the Burley Pit – the principal winding pit – on the Podmore Hall site, near Apedale. The business also included an ironworks, forge and coking ovens at Apedale. In 1890, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Staffordshire Coalfield
The North Staffordshire Coalfield was a coalfield in Staffordshire, England, with an area of nearly , virtually all of it within the city of Stoke on Trent and the borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme, apart from three smaller coalfields, Shaffalong and Goldsitch Moss Coalfields near Leek and the Cheadle Coalfield. Coal mining in North Staffordshire began early in the 13th century, but the industry grew during the Industrial Revolution when coal mined in North Staffordshire was used in the local Potteries ceramics and iron industry (ironstone deposits were also found with the coal in certain areas). Before the First World War, 20,000 men worked in the industry and over 50 pits were in operation. After nationalisation in 1947, the industry was gradually reduced in size as smaller pits closed or merged with larger, more modern mines. The industry began its final decline after the 1984-85 miners' strike and the last deep mine, Silverdale, closed on Christmas Eve 1998. Geology Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1895 In England
Events January–March * January 5 – Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. * January 12 – The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty is founded in England by Octavia Hill, Robert Hunter (National Trust), Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley. * January 13 – First Italo-Ethiopian War: Battle of Coatit – Italian forces defeat the Ethiopians. * January 17 – Félix Faure is elected President of the French Republic, after the resignation of Jean Casimir-Perier. * February 9 – Mintonette, later known as volleyball, is created by William G. Morgan at Holyoke, Massachusetts. * February 11 – The lowest ever UK temperature of is recorded at Braemar, in Aberdeenshire (historic), Aberdeenshire. This record is equalled in 1982#January, 1982, and again in 1995#December, 1995. * February 14 – Oscar Wilde's last pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
