Lofthouse Colliery Disaster
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The Lofthouse Colliery disaster was a
mining accident A mining accident is an accident that occurs during the process of mining minerals or metals. Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground coal mining, although accidents also occur in hard rock mining. ...
in the
West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...
,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, on Wednesday 21 March 1973, in which seven mine workers died when workings flooded.


Disaster

Lofthouse Colliery was in Lofthouse Gate, close to Outwood in the Stanley Urban District, where many of the colliers lived. The site is now in the City of Wakefield. ( Lofthouse is further north in the
City of Leeds The City of Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. The metropolitan borough includes the administrative centre of Leeds and the towns of Farsley, Garforth, Guiseley, Horsforth, Morley, Otley, Pudsey, Rothwell, W ...
). A new coalface was excavated too close to an abandoned flooded 19th-century mineshaft. The sudden inrush of of water trapped seven mine workers below ground. A six-day rescue operation succeeded in recovering only one body, that of Charles Cotton. The location of the flooded shaft was known to
National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "ve ...
(NCB) surveyors but they had not believed it to be as deep as the modern workings. British Geological Survey records indicated that the flooded shaft did descend to the same depth but the NCB neglected to check these records.


Legacy

The incident led to the Mines (Precautions Against Inrushes) Regulations 1979 (PAIR), requiring The response of
Arthur Scargill Arthur Scargill (born 11 January 1938) is a British trade unionist who was President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982 to 2002. He is best known for leading the UK miners' strike (1984–85), a major event in the history of ...
, a compensation agent in the Yorkshire NUM, is credited with boosting his popularity with the Yorkshire miners and helping his election to the post of president of the Yorkshire Area NUM later in 1973. He accompanied the rescue teams underground and was on site for six days with the relatives of the seven deceased. At the enquiry he used notebooks of underground working from the 19th century retrieved from the Institute of Geological Sciences in Leeds to argue that the National Coal Board could have prevented the disaster had they acted on the information available. Lofthouse Colliery closed in 1981. Many of the miners took transfers to the new
Selby Coalfield Selby coalfield (also known as the Selby complex, or Selby 'superpit') was a large-scale deep underground mine complex based around Selby, North Yorkshire, England, with pitheads at ''Wistow Mine'', ''Stillingfleet Mine'', ''Riccall Mine'', ''Nor ...
.BBC Bradford & West Yorkshire - 'It was never the same again!'
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Memorial

A seven-sided stone obelisk listing the names of the seven miners was erected in Wrenthorpe above the point where the miners were trapped. It is on the south side of Batley Road, opposite the junction with Wrenthorpe Lane at . The men who died were: *Frederick Armitage, 41 *Colin Barnaby, 36 *Frank Billingham, 48 *Sydney Brown, 36 *Charles Cotton, 49 (the only miner whose body was recovered) *Edward Finnegan, 40 *Alan Haigh, 30 Services and reunions were held in Wakefield and Wrenthorpe on the weekend of 23/24 March 2013 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the disaster.


See also

* Knockshinnoch Disaster * Quecreek Mine Rescue *
The Price of Coal ''The Price of Coal'' is a two-part television drama written by Barry Hines and directed by Ken Loach first broadcast as part of the ''Play for Today'' series in 1977. Set at the fictional Milton Colliery, near Barnsley in South Yorkshire, the e ...


References


External links


Rescuers recall missing Lofthouse Colliery miners
{{Coal mining in Yorkshire Disasters in Yorkshire History of West Yorkshire
Lofthouse Colliery disaster The Lofthouse Colliery disaster was a mining accident in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, on Wednesday 21 March 1973, in which seven mine workers died when workings flooded. Disaster Lofthouse Colliery was in Lofthouse Gate, close to Out ...
Lofthouse Colliery disaster The Lofthouse Colliery disaster was a mining accident in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, on Wednesday 21 March 1973, in which seven mine workers died when workings flooded. Disaster Lofthouse Colliery was in Lofthouse Gate, close to Out ...
Lofthouse Colliery disaster The Lofthouse Colliery disaster was a mining accident in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, on Wednesday 21 March 1973, in which seven mine workers died when workings flooded. Disaster Lofthouse Colliery was in Lofthouse Gate, close to Out ...
Coal mining disasters in England 1970s in West Yorkshire
Lofthouse Colliery disaster The Lofthouse Colliery disaster was a mining accident in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, on Wednesday 21 March 1973, in which seven mine workers died when workings flooded. Disaster Lofthouse Colliery was in Lofthouse Gate, close to Out ...