Story
George Dean was born in Muston, Leicestershire in 1857. William’s father was George Frederick Dean (1826-1906) and his mother was Alice Emma Gibson (1829-1877). They married in 1850 in Alice’s home village in Lincolnshire. By 1861, they had moved to Codnor, Derbyshire, and then Ripley, Derbyshire in 1871, where George was already working as a miner, which he continued in 1881, whilst lodging in Durham. On 27th June 1885 in Sherburn in Elmet, George married Sarah Hannah Heslegrave (1866-1944) who was from Micklefield. In 1891, George was working at Peckfield Colliery, and was living at 10 Station Row. His younger brother, William Francis Dean, and William’s brother-in-law, William Herring, also worked at Peckfield Colliery. Just before the colliery disaster, George moved to Hemsworth, but William Francis Dean and William Herring were together in the pit on the day of the disaster. They fell together at the bottom of the No.2 return airway, whilst making their way towards No.1 South Bord. William Francis Dean was a few yards ahead of William Herring.
When George heard his brother was in the mine, he came up from Hemsworth, and arriving at Peckfield Colliery on Thursday night, he joined the rescue teams. George was with John Plowright Houfton, Henry Slade Childe and John Gerrard at 4am on 1st May, when they managed to navigate the West Level and turned down the No.3 Dip. A fall of stone stopped them bratticing, and carrying the air with them, so they moved into the No.2 Return Airway, where they found George’s brother. Despite their discovery, they had to leave the bodies for 8 hours, before they could be recovered, and the rescue team returned back to the engine room where they found 4 bodies, 3 of them laying with their faces North, and one facing South, facing the dirt. They also discovered the bodies of Joseph Johnson, Edwin Charles Maggs and Joseph and Walter Winfield. On 2nd May at 11am, George returned to the bottom of No.2 Dip and recovered the body of his brother, who was laying on his back. The rescue team carried William Francis Dean and William Herring, whom George knew well, back to the pit. George reported at the Inquest that his brother showed no sign of injury or discolouration.
After the disaster, George continued working in Hemsworth, before moving to Wakefield where he still worked as a coal miner. He had two sons who were killed in the First World War: Thomas Gibson Dean (1891-1916) and John Stanley Dean (1898-1917). George passed away in 1928 at the age of 71.
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30th April 1896. The Peckfield Colliery Disaster at Micklefield 