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| An artist's impression of bodies being identified at the Unicorn Inn pub, after the Unity Brook Colliery Mining Disaster |
The morning of March 12 1878 must have seemed like any other Tuesday for the workers at Unity Brook Colliery in Kearsley .
But it ended in tragedy - an explosion causing 43 deaths.
Each year, people in Kearsley gather faithfully to make sure it's not forgotten.
Just this week, Stephen Tonge, a local who worked in the mining industry for 25 years, invited youngsters from local primary schools to read the names of those who died.
Here, MyBolton and the Manchester Evening News look back on Kearsley's darkest day.
Unity Brook was a relatively new colliery, having only been worked in for between nine and ten years, and it covered two coal seams; the Trencherbone mine and the Cannel mine.
Just nine days before the explosion, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Mines for the area, Joseph Dickenson, visited the pit and found its to be in a completely satisfactory condition.
In the 1800s, hundreds of miners died in explosions, roof falls, floods and haulage accidents and the Lancashire Coalfield, on which Unity Brook stood, gained particular notoriety in the 1870s.
It often found itself top of the list when it came to accident figures - despite only being the seventh largest producer of coal in the UK.
In Bolton , the issue came to a particularly devastating head during a 15-month period between January 1877 and March 1878 - when three mining disasters happened within four miles of each other.
Disasters at Stonehill Colliery, Farnworth and Fogg's Pit, Darcy Lever in January and February 1877 led to 28 deaths between them. This number was dwarfed a year later when an explosion at Unity Brook killed 43 people.
Coal mines were notorious for having highly flammable methane gas present, better known as fire damp, and naked flames in the presence of fire damp could lead to explosions.
On March 12 1878, the colliery was checked twice by underlooker James Holt; first thing in the morning and at noon. On these checks it became apparent that a small part of the roof was starting to fall.
At Unity Brook, naked flames were used to work both the mines and a fallen roof would exacerbate the risk of explosion caused by fire damp. Not considering it to be anything particularly untoward though, Mr Holt propped the fallen roof up and signed the colliery off as being safe.
Just after 1pm, when the men had returned from their lunch, one of the ropes which held the mining cages snapped and the cage fell down the shaft into the lower Cannel mine.
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| The memorial to the Unity Brook Colliery Disaster at Manchester Road, Kearsley |
When the cage reached the pit bank, a huge explosion was triggered, which was heard up to a quarter of a mile away. The iron plates which covered the pit bank were blown up and fragments were hurled in various directions.
All 42 people working in the Cannel mine at the time died, along with the onsetter working at the mouthing of the Trencherbone mine. It took around five and a half hours to recover the first body - that of 19-year-old Thomas Hilton.
It was not for another 48 hours, at 1pm on Thursday, that all 43 bodies were recovered from the colliery and identified. The youngest were brothers Jonathan and David Enion, aged 12 and 13. Their father Robert Enion, 39, was also killed in the blast.
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| The Unicorn Inn, where bodies were identified after the Unity Brook Colliery Mining Disaster |
The Unicorn Inn Public House was used to hold the first inquest into the disaster, and the stables of the pub also acted as a mortuary. At inquest, the deaths were recorded as purely accidental and it was concluded that all possible precautions had been used in the working of the mine. James Holt was exonerated from any blame as his decision not to withdraw the men from the mine after noticing the fallen roof was regarded as a simple error of judgement.
Around a year after the disaster, Unity Brook Colliery closed for good and today, a memorial stands at site of where the Unicorn Inn once stood, in Manchester Road.
The memorial is a coal tub bearing the name of the Unity Brook Colliery and displaying the number 43. It was unveiled in 2018 by Bolton historian Simon Colley, who researched the disaster extensively for his book 'Kearsley: An illustrated History'.
He said: "Tuesday 12th March 1878 became Kearsley’s darkest day. The single worst disaster our town has ever known struck in an instant, and took the lives of 43 men and boys at the Unity Brook Colliery.
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| The memorial to the Unity Brook Colliery Disaster at Manchester Road, Kearsley |
"I hope when we see the memorial it reminds us of the men and boys who never returned from work that day, and of the lives of all the Kearsley miners who lived without the luxuries we take for granted.
"And, just to make enough money to survive and keep food on the table, they had to go down dangerous deep dark holes in the ground, and that we might be just a little bit thankful that we, well, we don’t have to."
A yearly service is also held at the spot by Kearsley resident Stephen Tonge. Mr Tonge, who worked in the mining industry for 25 years, added: "Working class people were considered expendable in those days and they were under huge pressure to produce coal.
"The official report recorded it as an accident but I imagine today it would probably go down as neglect, albeit through a need to keep production moving."
The 43 people who died in the Unity Brook Colliery disaster are:
William Barnes, 38, of Stoneclough
Absolom Barnes, 14
James Beattie, 19 of Manor H’ss
George Booth, 21, of Denton
James Byron, 32, of Slater-field, Bolton
Thomas Byron, 28, of Kearsley
James Chadwick, 38, of Kearsley
Robert Clarke, 18, of Kearsley
Robert Enion, 39, of Kearsley Moor
Jonathan Enion, 12, of Kearsley Moor
David Enion 13, of Kearsley Moor
Richard Featherstone, 18, of Kearsley
Peter Fogg, 26, of Clifton
John Greenhalgh, 34, of Swinton
John Hamblet, 31, of Kearsley
John Harrison, 40, of Kearsley
John Haynes, 21, of Kearsley
Thomas Hilton, 20, of Kearsley
James Hobson, 30, of Kearsley
Joseph Hobson, 26, of Kearsley Moor
Alfred Isherwood, 31, of Lower Kearsley
George Jackson, 28, of Kearsley
William Leach, 24, of Lower Kearsley
Thomas Lever, 18, of Kearsley
George Lindley, 47, of Kearsley Moor
Ellis Lord (or Lindley), 14 , of Kearsley Moor
Amos Lomax, 17, of Kearsley
John Tickle Lomax, 31, of Eckersley Buildings
Thomas Lomax, 28, of Kearsley
Wright Lomax, 26, of Kearsley
Thomas Edward Mace, 19, of Kearsley
William Mayoh, 38, of Kearsley
Christopher Moore, 26, of Lindley’s Houses
William Morris, 15, of Taskers lane
James Partington, 44, of Kearsley Moor
Thomas Peak, 17, of Kearsley
Charles Tonge, 16, of Taskers Lane
Andrew Walker, 23, of Stoneclough
Richard Wallwork, 25, of Swinton
Joseph Welsby, 18, of Kearsley Moor
Samuel Wolstenholme, 47, of Lindley’s Houses
Thomas Wolstenholme, 41, of Kearsley
William Wolstenholme, 21, of Kearsley Moor
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