Warwickshire Coalfield (inc. pit accidents)

Philip Must have been a different incident because I rarely worked on Sunday and Bill Morse never did. I left Frankies about June time 1963 and I only remember one fatality in that year.

Hi Norman, The pit manager directly involved was Charlie Lees. Pam's uncle (Fred Bidgood) who did not normally work on Sundays, had been asked to help on this occasion, but paid for it with his life.

Hi Philip. I have been searching the records for a mention of Fred Bidgood's accident without success up to now but this is probably because I have little to go on. Below is a link to deaths underground where you should be able to find the full report. The site is very good but maybe not fully comprehensive as I know of a fatality in Wales that does not get a mention. This does not make light reading.

Can I ask that we all pause for a moment to remember the 14 men who lost their lives in the Exhall Colliery Disaster which occurred 100 years ago today.

Thanks, David H, for pointing out the anniversary - there is reference to the disaster earlier in this thread

Hi. To keep the thread going I have another coalmine you can add to your list. It was privately run by the Stanley Brothers in the late 1800's, I believe it was near or in Chilvers Coton (Nuneaton). I recently discovered my great granddad was involved in a fatal accident in 1892.

My grandfather was killed down Coventry Colliery in 1929 along with another work colleague. William Henry Chatwin was crushed by a roof fall and had a slow death. He had moved to Coventry from Blackheath in the early 1920's when the new miners lived in huts on an area called the Poddy on Bennetts Road. There was a separate temporary area for married couples. His eldest son accompanied him to the pit, and one of them would bike back to Blackheath (40miles) with the earnings to pay the rent and keep the family once a fortnight. The whole family moved to the Upper Crescent in Keresley End when the new pit houses were completed in 1926, in fact a family member still lives in the house. The family were doing well for the first time in their lives, previously the family had moved to Cwmbran in Glamorgan but family illness caused the return to Blackheath. William Henry served in the ASC in the 1st WW and survived although he was hospitalised for a time. Whilst at war he had a son born John Charles who died whilst at war with chicken pox. After returning to Blackheath the mine owners were closing mines in the Black Country hence the move to Coventry. So just when the family had taken a turn for the better disaster struck. His widow was left with three young children. The newspaper reports of the day follow the inquest which was held in Bedworth a few days after the accident. The reports say he was taken home in the colliery ambulance, the reality of it was he was taken on a stretcher across the field unwashed to the Crescent where my grandmother and eldest daughter Blanche cleaned him up ready for his burial at St Giles Exhall. The money my grandmother received from the colliery and his union was a pittance and the lads of the family did not go down the pit. The eldest son Tom immediately changed his pit work to the building industry and got work building the new bath house at the colliery. I have all the documentation for the above since most archives do not record this event and the colliery record for the years spanning this accident were lost. A sad tale but its life.

When I worked down coal mines I frequently heard miners say that they didn't care how deep they went but no way would go in an aircraft or even stand on a chair. Must admit that I didn't like going into the five district of Newdigates because the whole area was unstable. In the early 30s there was an explosion in North 6 district and 13 were killed, only ten bodies were recovered. The district was stanked off. A stank is a brick wall built from floor to roof, about 10ft high. Then a similar wall is built about 10 ft from the first wall and then a sloppy concrete mix is pumped in to totally fill the cavity and block the district off. The No 6 stank was about 300 yards from the main road and no one had been there since the thirties. It was the mid 50s when I was tasked with blowing the stank so had to go and judge what explosives I would need. I don't believe in ghosts because I know they cannot exist but while I was working on that stank things happened that had no logical explanation and was only to happy to get away from there and I never returned. It wasn't just me others felt uncomfortable there, others as well.

This post is nearly four years old, and no replies were ever received - I wonder if repeating it might elicit a response for JC in Sydney

I don't know anything about him but I would think someone on the forum can help. I've tidied up the photograph, I hope you don't mind

These looked a treat today at "The Bloxham Rally"

Further images

I think the coal mine in Nuneaton could have been one called 'Bermuda'. In the 1970s there were still old miners' cottages but the mine itself had closed some time before. There was a large lake where it had been called the 'Blue Lagoon'.

I thought Bermuda was a village built to house miners of Griff Colliery

I have recently been doing some research and have found that although we live in Tamworth we are on the northerly point of the Warwickshire Coalfield. Park Colliery was in the Liberty of Tamworth Castle, probably from the 18th century and definitely shown on 19th century maps. The field the estate of houses we live on was called Great Coalpit Close. A new development close by have 2 shafts that have had to be filled in.