100 YEARS AGO: FOUR MEN KILLED IN PENDLETON PIT TRAGEDY

Pendleton Pit or Pendleton Colliery to give it's real name was situated in the Whit Lane area of Salford, and was owned by Andrew Knowles and Son, and opened in the 1830s  

Pendleton became the deepest coal mine in the country when the workings reached 3,600 feet where the temperature at the coal face reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

The pit was no stranger to human tragedies, in February 1870 an explosion took place in the Albert mine causing the deaths of nine men and boys, two of the boys being 14 years of age, the following story is about the events on the morning of September 25th,  1923 when a further four men would be killed in the mine.

An inquest was opened and adjourned at Pendleton Town Hall and the deceased men were named as, Thomas Fury aged 24 of Picton Street, Amos Williams aged 32 of Railway Street, Richard Collier aged 46 of Higson Street and Joseph Gallagher aged 47 of Bolton Road.

The relatives of the dead men told the Coroner that they had identified the bodies at the Police Street Mortuary and gave harrowing testimonies of the last time they saw them alive before the accident.

The inquest into their deaths reopened in October before a jury at Pendleton Town Hall, the proceedings lasted two and a half hours.

Thomas Constantine a coal getter at the pit told the inquest that he went to work at 6 am and proceeded to the 14 West Level and about 12pm there was an explosion which blew his lamp out and threw him to the floor, he mentioned that the roof was well timbered.

Thomas Bold a fireman said he heard a loud retort or "crump" and found Gallagher in a sitting position surrounded by roof and rails, he said he had worked there for 12 years and had never seen a crump lift the floor as this one did.

Henry Halliwell also a fireman told the inquest that he was working in 15 East District and was told that something had wrong, he found Fury dead with a tally in his hand as is if he was putting it into a tub, and Amos Gallagher dead between two coal tubs he then went to release Gallagher who was dead and helped bring the bodies to the surface.

After all the evidence was heard the jury retired and gave a verdict of Accidental Death on all four men.

I spoke to Paul Kelly an ex miner and historian who told me that a crump was the noise caused by sudden movement of the earth suddenly shifting, or a floor heave,  just another hazard for the poor coal miner.

Sadly there was another crump at Pendleton Colliery in November 1925 which saw the deaths of a further six men.

Pendleton Colliery closed in April 1939 with the exhaustion of available reserves in the Rams Mine.