Excerpt from Memoir of the Hartley Colliery Accident and Relief Fund

The first block of Hartley Cottages, erected in Northumberland out of the final surplus of the fund, stands near the shaft. The foundation stones of these were laid on June 25th, 1910, by Mr. R. 0. Lamb, Sir W. R. Plummer and Mr. T. E. Forster, and the cottages were formally Opened by Mr. George Hurst in the following October. After the accident, the Hartley royalty was abandoned by the Messrs. Carr, but was subsequently leased by the owners of the Beaten Delaval Collieries, by whom a fresh winning of the Yard Seam was made by means of the Hastings and Melton shafts, and work resumed in 1877. The shafts were afterwards deepened to the Low Main Seam, and the old Hartley workings in that seam drained and entered in 1900. The scene then presented was a strange and weird one, in many parts of the workings the tubs and gear being found standing ready as if for the resumption of the work which had been so hurriedly abandoned more than 88 years previously.anxieties at the moment. Their words will, it is thought, bring before the reader the terrible nature of the calamity more vividly than any which could be written after so long an interval of time.

The paper by Mr. G. B. Forster has been reproduced by per mission of The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. Although it may not be of such general interest, it has been placed first as it is thought that a perusal of the descriptive portion of it and its accompanying diagrams will serve to give the reader a general idea of the surroundings at the colliery, and so enable him to understand more easily the references to details in the papers following, as well as render unnecessary the publication of the rough diagrams which accompanied them. The narrative of Mr. T. Wemyss Reid* which follows was published by its author for the benefit of the Relief Fund shortly after the accident. It contains the, reports written by Mr. Reid for the Newcastle Daily Journal, and is reproduced here by permission of the proprietors of that paper. Mr. Reid did his work well, and no record of the accident can make a deeper impression on the mind than this. Written, as it was, amidst the hurry and excitement of the moment and under the influences of such distressing surroundings, it represents accurately, as the author states in his preface, the feeling prevalent upon the Spot throughout the long period of suspense intervening between the occurrence of the accident and the discovery of the fate of those who suffered by it; a feeling which varied every hour and which can, therefore, only be truthfully recorded by a contemporaneous record.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.