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Introduction

During the course of researching articles for the ´óĎó´ŤĂ˝ “People’s War” project, several of them have touched upon an explosion on 3 June 1941 at William Pit, Whitehaven, Cumberland (now Cumbria) in which 12 men and boys who died as a result of this explosion. There were also 10 others seriously injured, and many others who suffered less severely. A previous article I have written deals with the explosion, its causes and its victims (Reference A8590809).

This article deals mainly with how those in the community coped with the disaster, particularly assisting and comforting the injured and bereaved. No doubt during the war, many communities throughout Britain had to cope with death, bereavement and injuries. In this case, the deaths and injuries were not directly as a result of enemy bombing but as a result of one of the main reserved occupations of the war: coal mining. It is easy to overlook the fact that the extended families and friends of these miners also suffered. Those who died left wives, mothers, fathers, children, brothers and sisters, who coped as best they could over the days, months and years that followed.

To research information for this article I have referred to contemporary reports from 1941, as recorded in documents held at the Cumbria Archives Office in Whitehaven and at the Haig Mining Museum, Kells, Whitehaven. Additionally, I have also spoken to people with personal memories of the incident and obtained some useful background information from Ray Devlin, a highly respected and knowledgeable historian of coal mining in West Cumberland.

The events I concentrate on in this article are the immediate aftermath of the explosion, the a Requiem Mass at St Begh’s RC Church where 6 of the victims had their funerals, a Civic Service for all the victims at St James’s Anglican Church and a visit to the town a few weeks after the accident by the Duke of Kent, the King’s brother. The author has read and understood the terms of the ´óĎó´ŤĂ˝ “People’s War” website.

Doctors and clergy assist the rescue

Reading contemporary reports about the explosion, one positive aspect of the tragedy was how promptly and efficiently those who could help went to the mine when the steam horn gave the terrible signal announcing an explosion. Among the local doctors who assisted the stricken miners were Dr Victor Harris, Dr T.S.L. Jones Dr J.W. Mackay and Dr Phyllis M. Taylor.

According to ‘The Whitehaven News’ Dr Taylor was the first on the scene at the pithead. A dressing station was set up to treat the injured miners as soon as they were brought to the surface. Dr Taylor assisted in the dressing station for the whole time the rescue operation was being undertaken. After initially helping out at the dressing station, the newspaper records Dr Jones and Dr Mackay later went to the hospital after some of the injured had been admitted. Dr Harris produced the medical report about the victims of the disaster that was presented to the subsequent Public Inquiry.

The local newspaper records that the first clergyman arriving at the pithead was Adjutant J. Coultas, representing the Salvation Army. Adjutant Coultas proceeded not just to comfort the injured, the dying and the dead, but bathed wounds and assisted in carrying buckets of hot water. Later in the night, Adjutant Coultas served tea and sandwiches to the rescuers. Roman Catholic priests who went to the pithead were Father Anselm Lightbound OSB, Father Augustine Kervin OSB and Father P.J. Wackrill OSB. Anglican ministers who assisted during the rescue operation were Reverend Canon R. Mayall and Reverend H.G. Green, with the Reverend F. Taylor representing the Methodist ministers.

When the clergy realised there were dead and dying men down the mine, some of the clergy volunteered to go down the mine to provide spiritual comfort to those in need. However, the local newspaper account of the accident states that the rescue teams turned down this request because it was felt to be too dangerous for those without previous mine rescue experience. In the months after the explosion the town clergy provided much-needed spiritual comfort to the injured and bereaved, regardless of their denomination.

A Requiem for some of the victims

Of the 12 miners killed in the explosion, 6 of the funerals took place at St Begh’s RC Church on Coach Road. According to the local newspaper, the clergy conducting these funerals were Father Anselm Lightbound OSB, Father Philip Jackson OSB and Father Augustine Kervin OSB.

On the morning of Saturday 7 June 1941, a Requiem Mass was held at St Begh’s for 4 of the congregation who had been killed in the explosion up to that time. Another two victims subsequently died of their injuries in the hospital. The concelebrants at the Requiem were Father Lightbound and Father Jackson. According to a report in ‘The Whitehaven News’ the following Thursday, it was Father Lightbound, parish priest at St Begh’s between 1938 and 1947, who gave a very moving sermon.

Firstly, Father Lightbound offered the condolences of the large crowd present at the service to the families of all the victims. He continued by saying that while human words were of little comfort to the bereaved at that time, the one thing that could comfort the bereaved was their religion. The families were asked to remember that there was another, better, life where there was no suffering.

Secondly, Father Lightbound said another consolation was the teaching of the Church about prayers for the dead. It was comforting for the families left behind to know they could assist those who had died by prayer.

Thirdly, the congregation was asked to pray for those who were still lying injured at that time, so that they might be fully restored to health. Father Lightbound also paid tribute to what he described as “… the noble band of workers who took part in the rescue operations”.

A Civic Service for the victims

Just over a week later, on the afternoon of Sunday 15 June 1941 a Civic Memorial service for the victims was held at the Anglican church of St James, High Street, Whitehaven. According to a newspaper report in ‘The Whitehaven News’ dated Thursday 19 June 1941, the clergy who spoke at the service included the Right Reverend H.H. Williams Bishop of Carlisle, Reverend H.G. Green, Vicar of St Peter’s Anglican Church, Kells, Whitehaven, Canon R. Mayell, Rural Dean of Whitehaven and the Reverend C.W. Hutchings (Congregational Minister).

The organist was Mr T.H. Dobie. There was a massed choir from the Anglican churches of the town, and a number of soloists.

The order of service was as follows:

1. Chopin’s ‘Dead March’, played by the organist Mr Dobie

2. Hymn: ‘Rock of Ages’

3. Scriptural readings, given by the Reverend H.G. Green

4. The 23rd Psalm (‘The Lord is my Shepherd’)

5. The Lesson, read by the Reverend C.W. Hutchings

6. Prayers: for those who died, for those who mourn and for those injured, led by Canon R. Mayall

7. Anthem: ‘Cast Thy Burden upon the Lord’ (from Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah’), sung by the combined choirs from the churches of St James, St Nicholas, Holy Trinity and Christ Church. A Mr Dent was the tenor soloist.

8. Hymn: ‘He wants not Friends that hath Love’

9. Sermon by the Bishop of Carlisle, the Right Reverend H.H. Williams

10. Hymn: ‘Through the Night of Doubt and Sorrow’

11. Prayer and Benediction given by the Bishop of Carlisle.

Address by the Bishop of Carlisle

As stated in the previous section, during the course of the Civic Service commemorating the victims of the William Pit explosion of 1941, the sermon was given by the then Anglican Bishop of Carlisle, the Right Reverend Henry Herbert Williams. According to the Carlisle Diocesan Bishop’s Office, Dr Williams served as Bishop of Carlisle between 1920 and 1947. The Bishop’s Office also kindly confirmed I could quote from Bishop Williams’s 1941 sermon for this article. I was able to read a report on the sermon in the Cumbria County Archives Office. It was originally reported in ‘The Whitehaven News’ edition of 19 June 1941.

In his sermon, Bishop Williams said he had known the mining district of West Cumberland for over 40 years. Over that time, he had also known that large sums of money had gone out of the area, and many of the men who had received it. Whilst it was not their fault, the Bishop was reported as saying that nothing could justify the living conditions that miners’ families had lived not so long before.

According to the report, Bishop Williams stated that the trouble with modern civilisation came primarily from a lack of unity in a common aim. Reading this many years after the war it seems firstly an odd thing to be said from the pulpit in wartime, and secondly that it was reported in the press. It may need to be appreciated in the context of the Memorial Service of a Pit Disaster, and at this stage in the war things had still been going badly for Britain. Bishop Williams stated that it would be a great help if the miners could be made to feel the fellowship with the whole community. This was a community that, at that time in June 1941, was engaged in a common task and undergoing a common danger, but it was also a community with a future that should care for everyone in the community and was no longer indifferent to the needs of the miners.

The Bishop said that this was the third time he had been at a Memorial Service in Whitehaven after a pit disaster where many lives had been lost. In his sermon, Bishop Williams referred to a very moving incident from the worst of those three Pit Disasters, the Wellington Pit explosion of 1910 when 139 men and boys lost their lives.

On that occasion, the Bishop said he had been comforting the family of one of the miners who had been killed. He recalled how the young widow of the miner was standing with her young children clinging to her skirt. The grief-stricken widow had said: “I hope that none of these will ever go down the mine”. At that, her father-in-law, who was also an old miner, stood up from the fire. He put his hand on the young widow’s shoulder and said, “Why, woman, somebody must get coal”.

This scene had obviously struck a chord with the Bishop. Recalling the incident 31 years later, Bishop Williams told the Memorial Service that this statement by the old miner to his daughter-in-law was “… a noble statement”. According to Dr Williams, on that day in 1910, and on this day in 1941 all their hearts went out chiefly to the women: that was to say the mothers, widows and sisters of the miners. He pointed out that unlike the miners, these women were not able to share in the excitement or comradeship of the mine. Bishop Williams said that the women had had to endure the loss of their menfolk, the sorrow that went with it and the separation, that in most cases, would last throughout life.

According to the newspaper report of the Bishop’s sermon, Dr Williams finished by saying everyone in the community should recognise that the men who were being mourned had given their all. Even more than that, the Bishop concluded his sermon by stating that in everyone’s hearts on that afternoon, what he called ‘the greatest of all sayings’, was true: “Greater love hath no man than this, That he gave his life for his friends”.

Visit by the Duke of Kent

A month after the accident, on Thursday 3 July 1941 the Duke of Kent visited the North-West of England, calling in at Carlisle, Maryport, Workington and Whitehaven. After an overnight stay with the Pennington family at Muncaster Castle, the Duke and his entourage visited Barrow-in-Furness, then in Lancashire, on Friday 4 July.

The Duke was dressed as a Group Captain of the RAF. He was accompanied by his private secretary, Lieutenant J.A. Lowther, RNVR, a member of the local Cumbrian aristocratic family, who among their achievements was a large part of the early development of the coal industry in the Whitehaven area. The main purpose of the Duke’s visit was actually to inspect detachments of the Home Guard, the ARP and WRVS units in the area. This, the Duke did at each of the Cumbrian towns he visited.

Additionally, while he was in Whitehaven the Duke paid a visit to Haig Pit in the Kells district of the town. This included going underground and talking to some of the miners. The Duke was able to see the working conditions of the miners and some ways the coal was mined and transported to the surface. According to the local newspaper reporter accompanying the Duke, HRH even tried out a pneumatic drill. It meant the Duke could take away a piece of Cumbrian coal that he had personally drilled and keep it as a souvenir.

Also while he was in Whitehaven, the Duke met with those women of the town who had recently lost their menfolk in the previous month’s explosion at William Pit. According to the local newspaper report of the Duke’s visit, this meeting took place in the Council Chamber at the Town Hall. The room was suitably decorated by flowers donated for the occasion by some local amateur gardeners. This was a private meeting between the Duke and the 12 mothers and widows of those victims of the recent disaster. The only other person present was the Town Mayor, Alderman James B. Smith.

The 12 women of the town who were presented to the Duke by the Mayor on 3 July 1941 were:

1. Mrs Alice Burney, the mother of John Peter Burney

2. Mrs Harker, the mother of William E. Harker

3. Mrs Molly George, the mother of Jimmy George

4. Mrs McGrievy, the mother of Robert McGrievy

5. Mrs Mabel Wells, the widow of James Wells

6. Mrs Elizabeth Perry, the widow of William Perry

7. Mrs Margaret Curwen, the widow of Jonathan Curwen

8. Mrs C. Moore, the widow of Cornelius Moore

9. Mrs Mary Baxter, the widow of Robert Baxter

10. Mrs Ellen O’Pray, the widow of James O’Pray

11. Mrs C. Martin, the widow of Charles Martin MM

12. Mrs Catherine Barbour, the widow of Sydney Barbour

The youngest of these twelve was 20 year old Mrs Barbour, who carried her young 13 month old son to the meeting. Although exactly what was said at the meeting was not reported, the local newspaper article about the Duke’s visit does say that he discussed the future of Mrs Barbour’s young son with her.

Conclusion

In many respects, this is a rather tragic account of an event that happened during the war year. Compared to many other aspects of wartime life, there appears to be relatively few accounts about the mining communities during the war. There are a number of personal stories that have been written about the conscription to the mines that came later in the war (i.e. the so-called ‘Bevin Boys’ ). Inevitably, these tend to concentrate on a particular and personal aspect of working in the mines.

I would like to thank the many people who have assisted me with information enabling me to write this article, including the Bishop’s Office of the Anglican Diocese of Carlisle and Father Luke Waring OSB of St Begh’s RC Church, Coach Road, Whitehaven. Father Luke kindly gave me a little background information about the priests who were serving at St Beghs’s at the time of the 1941 explosion. Additionally, Father Luke also took the time to show me a photograph of Father Anselm Lightbound and the other priests at St Begh’s in the war years. Half of the victims who died in the 1941 explosion were Catholics, and all of these funeral services took place at St Begh’s.

I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Mr Ray Devlin, an historian and author on local West Cumbrian mining and military history, who has provided me with much background information and encouragement for this and some other articles I have written. Ray has personally researched the history of William Pit, including the 1941 explosion. According to Ray, tragic events such as the 1941 William Pit explosion should not be glossed over as they represent the true cost of coal.

Consequently, I would like to dedicate this article to the memory of those miners and their families who gave their all and paid such a high price in the Cumbrian mines, particularly those affected by the 1941 explosion. It is important to acknowledge and to remember the sacrifice they made.

Finally, I include an extract from a poem I have written, entitled ‘Whitehaven - The Town that is our Home’. The verse quoted below refers to the miners who lost their lives in mining accidents, such as the one of June 1941, and their womenfolk who were left behind to mourn and cope as best they could:

“Always remember the sons you’ve lost,
And all those girls who counted the cost.
There were times when you’ve cried in sorrow:
But now you must live for tomorrow”.

J. Ritson
January 2006.

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