FATALITIES

Prior to 1853, the Monmouthshire Merlin was the only newspaper of note in the Eastern Valley coalfield, but in June of that year the Star of Gwent was published for the first time, and it is significant that while only eleven fatal accidents were reported in the Eastern Valley Coalfield between January 1850 and December 1853, no fewer than sixty-one were reported between January 1854 and December 1859. The first edition of the Pontypool Free Press and Herald of the Hills was also published in 1859 so that by the end of the decade happenings in and around the Eastern Valley coalfield were being reported far more regularly than in earlier years.

Many of the reports of coalfield fatalities during the 1850s make truly shocking reading, but are worth studying in some depth if only to gain an appreciation of the harshness of the times…there was, for instance, the death of a 16-year-old boy whose body was found at the bottom of a 330 ft shaft at Cwmlickey Pit near Pontypool on January 14th, 1854. He had been sleeping rough in the neighbourhood, and supposedly fallen down the shaft during the night. And there were the dreadful injuries suffered by Blaenavon miner William Bryant in a roof fall on July 25th, 1854, as a result of which he was confined to his bed for the next thirty years until his death on June 8th, 1884. His gravestone can still be seen in St Peter’s Churchyard.

The circumstances surrounding the deaths of several colliers were somewhat unusual, one of whom- Moses Melling –was crushed under a fall of stones and rubbish in a pit at Abersychan on April 19th, 1855. He apparently had a premonition for several days beforehand that he would be killed, and feared to go to work. On the first day of his return, and shortly after descending the pit, the fatal accident happened.

The Death of Edmund Bevan just twenty-three days after being badly burnt in an explosion of firedamp at Cwmnantddu in January 1856 was shrouded in controversy. The inquest was held in the Horseshoe Inn at Pontnewynydd, where it was revealed that three days before the explosion Bevan had been involved in a savage fight and received considerable injuries from blows about the head, jaws, and back. While in bed after the explosion it was found he had a broken jaw and could not eat solids. The inquest verdict stated that death was caused ‘by the burns and the violence he had been subjected to, but from which of those effects his death had resulted, was to the jury unknown’.

Tales of bravery abounded in the Eastern Valley coalfield with rescuers regularly risking their own lives in trying to release comrades trapped under falls of coal and rubbish. Such tasks were not only harrowing but often extremely difficult and time-consuming, and when Joseph Howells was killed by a roof fall in a pit at the British on March 22nd, 1858 it took four hours to extricate his body.

Sometimes gunpowder had to be used to break up very heavy stones, as in the retrieval of the bodies of father and son John and Thomas Herbert at Cwmffrwd Level Varteg, on October 2nd, 1854, and Charles Foote at the Spotted Pin Pit Varteg, on December 3rd, 1855. At other times rescuers tore at the rubble with their bare hand, and foreman Henry Jeffries risked his life and wore his nails down to the quick in attempting to clear a fall covering a workman at Pen Lasgarn level near Garndiffaith on February 5th, 1855. His name was recommended to the Royal Humane Society to bestow a reward for his bravery.

If someone lost his life in a mining accident the rest of the men would usually stop work for the day, and when the funeral of the deceased took place it was invariably well attended. Indeed the largest working man’s funeral seen in the locality for years was that of collier David Davies- better known as David Shon William – who was killed on the spot by the fall of a large stone in a pit near Pontypool on September 13th 1851

Many colliers and miners belonged to Benefit Societies – also called benefit Clubs or Friendly Societies – and two lodges of Ivorites and foresters, along with a vast concourse of people, attended the funeral of fifty-year-old Henry Smith who was killed by a fall of coal at Varteg Colliery on February 14th 1857. Likewise upwards of a thousand friends, including four lodges of the Philanthropic Order, attended the funeral of forty-seven-year-old Enoch Walden, who died eleven days after being injured by a roof fall at Blaendare Colliery in November 1858. At such funerals, it was customary for lodge members to wear their club scarfs, hatbands and gloves.

*Excerpts from A Tribute to the Eastern Valley Colliers and Miners 1800-1900 by Brian Foster