PIT: MOOR END COLLIERY (HUSKAR)

Location: Silkstone Common, BarnsleyType: Inrush of waterFatalities: 26 (7 – 17 years)Date: Wednesday 4th July 1838

A book I bought during my day in South Yorkshire(to help with my research)

One of the most saddest but significant mining disasters in Britain.

Occurred near the village of Silkstone. A tremendous storm brew during the

afternoon of 4th July 1838. What is normally a dry ditch was turned

into a raging torrent of water, inundating the Huskar pit (a day-hole/drift linked underground to Moor End Colliery).

TWENTY-SIX children were trapped and drowned (between the ages of 7 – 17 years old).

Robert Couldwell Clarke, who was the local squire and resided at Noblethrorpe Hall, owned the property of both mines.

This photograph was taken by the author of the memorial to the children who died in the Huskar Pit flood in Nabs Wood, Silkstone Common.

The Huskar monument, erected by the people of Silkstone parish in 1988 to mark the 150th anniversary of the disaster.

In an outbuilding of Throstle Nest (or Hall), the bodies were placed after retrieval.

Their faces were washed and then taken to their respective homes.

3 of the children were from Dodworth, 3 from Thurgoland, and 20 from Silkstone.

Few photos I took during my visit at the Barnsley Town Hall (museum); about the experience of the children working hard underground in 1840 (months after the mining disaster).

WHAT HAPPENED DOWN THERE? The banksman, who was above the pit,

raised the alarm as soon as storm water began running down the Moor End Calliery.

He shouted at those below to come out of the pit as quickly as possible.

The children made their way to the pit bottom, waiting with anticipation of being drawn up the shaft.

There was pandemonium below; due to the amount of water that had unexpectedly entered its building, the engine was unable to raise steam.

WHAT HAPPENED DOWN THERE? After some puzzlement, groups made their

way towards the day-hole through unfamiliar roadways in darkness.

14 of the older children managed to find shelter in a ‘slit’ (a narrow short-cut between passages).

However, water was building up at an alarming rate near the entrance to the drift above ground (ready to start pouring through the mouth of the pit).

2 children, washed into smaller pits, escaped.

WHAT HAPPENED DOWN THERE? Four others were hauled to safety

after rushing back to the Moor End pit bottom (the engine now working again).

BUT, 26 children were swept downwards by an inescapable inrush of water after they opened the folding trap-doors near the entrance/exit of Huskar (hurling them against ventilation door number 2).

They drowned within a minute...

MY PHOTOS (FROM THE HUSKAR DISASTER MEMORIAL IN SILKSTONE CHURCHYARD)

Looking towards All Saints’ Church, Silkstone from the Huskar disaster monument

All the boys who died during the disaster

(7 – 16 years old)

The Huskar disaster memorial:These photos of all three sides of the memorial show the detail portraying the names and ages of the girls and boys who died from the mining disaster (one side conveying only the girls’ names, and the other side showing the names of the boys).

• The average age of the children who died was only 10.8 years.• News of the tragedy shocked young Queen Victoria, and was the subject to discussion in both the London press and parliament.• Lord Ashley soon introduced a Bill prohibiting the employment of women, and children under the age of 10, from working underground in coal mines (after this tragedy had taken place).

All the girls who died during the disaster

(8 – 17 years old)