Warren Vale Colliery Disaster
Subscription Commenced
A subscription was started by the Rev. Mr. Mahon, incumbent of Rawmarsh, in aid of the widows and orphans of the men who were killed by the explosion.
Messrs. Charlesworth, the leases of the colliery, gave £250, and Mr. J. C. D. Charlesworth gave £50.
At the Inquest, Mr. W. B. Wrightson, M.P., of Cusworth, announced his willingness to contribute £25 towards the fund for the relief of the sufferers.
There was perhaps no district of similar size in any part of the country which had been the scene of such frequent disasters and involving so great a sacrifice of life as this area of the country, within a circuit of five miles of Rawmarsh.
During the previous ten years, five accidents had occurred, by which an aggregate of 263 lives had been sacrificed.
In July, 1841, 50 lives were lost at Masborough by the capsizing of a boat; in November, of the same year, 15 men and boys were killed by an explosion in Mount Osborne coalpit, Barnsley; in January, 1847, six lives were lost by an accident in the Darley Main colliery, Worsborough Dale; in the following March, 78 men, working in the Oaks pit, near Barnsley, met with almost instant death from an explosion of firedamp; in January, 1849, another explosion occurred at Worsborough Dale, within two miles of the former one, by which 75 lives were lost; and, lastly, this explosion at Warren Vale.
Almost the whole of these calamities were due to explosions from firedamp.
