John Brass (colliery Manager)
John Brass was a manager and later director of Houghton Main Colliery Co Ltd. According to the ''Colliery Year Book and Coal Trades Directory'' he was "one of the most prominent figures in the South Yorkshire coal mining industry". He held significant posts in the mining, gas and coke industries both in South Yorkshire and nationally. Between 1934 and 1937 he was one of the assessors in the Gresford disaster inquiry and, along with the other assessor, published dissenting reports to the main inquiry. Background Brass' father Thomas Francis Brass OBE, JP, MA(Durham) was born in 1858, the son of a blacksmith in Sherburn Hill, County Durham. TF Brass rose from colliery clerk through colliery cashier, to become a Surface Manager and eventually the Under Manager for Kimblesworth Colliery. By 1921 he was the agent (responsible for the general laying out and supervision of the workings) for Charlaw & Sacriston Collieries Co Ltd. In 1903 he was one of the team of rescuers who e ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wingate, County Durham
Wingate is a village in County Durham, England. Wingate is a former pit village with a mixture of 19th-century, post-war, and more recent housing developments. It was originally inhabited by around 30 farmers before 1839 when coal was discovered. It is located in the East of County Durham, three miles south west of Peterlee, and seven miles north west of Hartlepool. As with most villages in the area, it grew rapidly with the development of coal-mining in the region. The name Wingate is said to derive from the Anglo-Saxon words ''windig'' (windy) and ''geat'' (road) meaning windy road. Like many County Durham villages, residents are known to speak the pitmatic dialect although new housing developments has seen a sharp increase in the village's population. History There is no evidence of settlement at Wingate until the 16th century. However, mining made its presence felt in the 19th century and Wingate became a large settlement and regional centre for the area. The village is loc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of The Somme
The Battle of the Somme ( French: Bataille de la Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the Somme, a river in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies. More than three million men fought in the battle of whom one million were wounded or killed, making it one of the deadliest battles in human history. The French and British had committed themselves to an offensive on the Somme during the Chantilly Conference in December 1915. The Allies agreed upon a strategy of combined offensives against the Central Powers in 1916 by the French, Russian, British and Italian armies, with the Somme offensive as the Franco-British contribution. Initial plans called for the French army to undertake the main part of the Somme offensive, supported on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mining In The United Kingdom
Mining in the United Kingdom produces a wide variety of fossil fuels, metals, and industrial minerals due to its complex geology. In 2013, there were over 2,000 active mines, quarries, and offshore drilling sites on the continental land mass of the United Kingdom producing £34bn of minerals and employing 36,000 people. Brief history The United Kingdom has a rich history of mining. Mining of non-ferrous minerals, particularly of copper and tin, has been ongoing since the Bronze Age. For example, copper was mined in Wales during approximately 2200–850 BC. Metalworking debris found beneath the ramparts at Beeston Castle in Cheshire is evidence of bronze production during the Bronze Age. Later, lead and copper attracted the Romans to Britain. The Romans introduced iron tools and used local slaves to mine galena, an important lead ore mineral, from which they refined lead, tin and silver. These metals were used locally and also transported by ship throughout the Roman Empire. Gal ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mining Engineering
Mining in the engineering discipline is the extraction of minerals from underneath, open pit, above or on the ground. Mining engineering is associated with many other disciplines, such as mineral processing, exploration, excavation, geology, and metallurgy, geotechnical engineering and surveying. A mining engineer may manage any phase of mining operations, from exploration and discovery of the mineral resources, through feasibility study, mine design, development of plans, production and operations to mine closure. With the process of Mineral extraction, some amount of waste and uneconomic material are generated which are the primary source of pollution in the vicinity of mines. Mining activities by their nature cause a disturbance of the natural environment in and around which the minerals are located. Mining engineers must therefore be concerned not only with the production and processing of mineral commodities, but also with the mitigation of damage to the environment bot ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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British Mining Engineers
British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, the English language as spoken and written in the United Kingdom or, more broadly, throughout the British Isles * Celtic Britons, an ancient ethno-linguistic group * Brittonic languages, a branch of the Insular Celtic language family (formerly called British) ** Common Brittonic, an ancient language Other uses *''Brit(ish)'', a 2018 memoir by Afua Hirsch *People or things associated with: ** Great Britain, an island ** United Kingdom, a sovereign state ** Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800) ** United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922) See also * Terminology of the British Isles * Alternative names for the British * English (other) * Britannic (other) * British Isles * Brit (other) * Briton (d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1961 Deaths
Events January * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba (Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). ** Aero Flight 311 (Koivulahti air disaster): Douglas DC-3C OH-LCC of Finnish airline Finnair, Aero crashes near Kvevlax (Koivulahti), on approach to Vaasa Airport in Finland, killing all 25 on board, due to pilot error: an investigation finds that the Captain (civil aviation), captain and First officer (civil aviation), first officer were both exhausted for lack of sleep, and had consumed excessive amounts of alcohol at the time of the crash. It remains the deadliest air disaster to occur in the country. * January 5 ** Italian sculptor Alfredo Fioravanti marches into the U.S. Consulate in Rome, and confesses that he was part of the team that forged the Etruscan terracotta warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. ** After the 1960 Turkish coup d'état, 1960 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1879 Births
Events January–March * January 1 – The Specie Resumption Act takes effect. The United States Note is valued the same as gold, for the first time since the American Civil War. * January 11 – The Anglo-Zulu War begins. * January 22 – Anglo-Zulu War – Battle of Isandlwana: A force of 1,200 British soldiers is wiped out by over 20,000 Zulu warriors. * January 23 – Anglo-Zulu War – Battle of Rorke's Drift: Following the previous day's defeat, a smaller British force of 140 successfully repels an attack by 4,000 Zulus. * February 3 – Mosley Street in Newcastle upon Tyne (England) becomes the world's first public highway to be lit by the electric incandescent light bulb invented by Joseph Swan. * February 8 – At a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute, engineer and inventor Sandford Fleming first proposes the global adoption of standard time. * March 3 – United States Geological Survey is founded. * March 11 – Th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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House Of Commons Of The United Kingdom
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as members of Parliament (MPs). MPs are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved. The House of Commons of England started to evolve in the 13th and 14th centuries. In 1707 it became the House of Commons of Great Britain after the political union with Scotland, and from 1800 it also became the House of Commons for Ireland after the political union of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, the body became the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland after the independence of the Irish Free State. Under the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, the Lords' power to reject legislation was reduced to a delaying power. The g ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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]   |
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Joseph Jones (trade Unionist)
Joseph Jones (1891 – 1 April 1948) was a British trade unionist. Born in St Helens, Jones studied at a technical college before becoming a coal miner.Robin Page Arnot, ''The Miners in Crisis and War'', p.129 He moved to work at Thurcroft, and was elected branch secretary of the Yorkshire Miners' Association (YMA) in 1914. He was an active methodist, and strongly promoted the cause of temperance, later becoming Chairman of the Workers' Temperance League. He was elected as a Labour Party member of West Riding County Council in 1919, serving until 1933. In 1923, Jones was elected as Treasurer of the YMA and, the following year, he became its General Secretary. He was elected to Barnsley Town Council in 1926, serving as Mayor of Barnsley in 1931. In 1924, Jones contested the General Secretaryship of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) as the candidate of the union's right-wing, but he was narrowly defeated by the communist A. J. Cook. From 1926 until 1931, Jone ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern Germany, and patented in 1867. It rapidly gained wide-scale use as a more robust alternative to gun powder, black powder. History Dynamite was invented by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel in the 1860s and was the first safely manageable explosive stronger than black powder. Alfred Nobel's father, Immanuel Nobel, was an industrialist, engineer, and inventor. He built bridges and buildings in Stockholm and founded Sweden's first rubber factory. His construction work inspired him to research new methods of blasting rock that were more effective than black powder. After some bad business deals in Sweden, in 1838 Immanuel moved Nobel family, his family to Saint Petersburg, where Alfred and his brothers were educated privately under Swedish and Russi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gresford Colliery
Gresford Colliery was a coal mine located a mile from the North Wales village of Gresford, near Wrexham. History Sinking The North Wales Coalfield, of which Gresford was part, runs from Point of Ayr, on the Flintshire coast to the Shropshire border. Although coal mining records date back to the 15th century, it was not heavily exploited until the 18th century. By 1900, more than 12,500 miners produced three million tonnes a year. Industrialist Henry Dennis of Ruabon, and his son Henry Dyke Dennis, began the colliery near Gresford in 1907. The site was on the edge of the River Alyn, Alyn Valley, between the Shrewsbury to Chester Line, Shrewsbury and Chester Railway (later the Great Western Railway's Birkenhead Woodside railway station, Birkenhead to Paddington railway station, London Paddington line), and the old main road between Wrexham and Chester. The Dennis' company United Westminster & Wrexham Collieries took four years to sink two deep Shaft mining, shafts, the Dennis (d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |