Story
George Turner was born in Peckfield on 24th September 1872, and was the son of an agricultural labourer, later farm bailiff, Thomas Turner (1839-1919) and Annie Eliza Clarkson (1843-1916) who had married in Hemingbrough on 31st December 1863. George’s father and mother came from Hambleton and Selby respectively, but George was raised in Ledsham. In 1891, George had left his parents’ home, and was lodging with Henry Hicks and his family in Kippax. Henry was a Blacksmith, and George was training as an apprentice Blacksmith, a trade which he was to carry on until his retirement.
On 10th September 1893, George married Charlotte Ann Lambert (1871-1913) in Wighill, and was 23 years-old on the day of the Colliery Disaster. It was suggested that George may have been in the stable, shoeing the pit ponies when the explosion hit the stable, but Caleb Atack visited the the stable before escaping, and mentioned seeing the body of the Stableman Charles Shepherd, and the suffering pit ponies, but did not mention finding George. As the Colliery Blacksmith, he may have been on repair work close to the pit bottom. George was brought out of the pit before noon with severe burns around his head and arms, and taken on the York to Leeds train. The Yorkshire Evening Post reported later the same day: “Two ambulances were despatched to the North-Eastern Railway Station to meet the 12:25 train, but only one injured man came. The unfortunate sufferer lay on a hand ambulance unconscious, with his blackened and burnt face and hands in oiled bandages, so as to keep the cold air from his burns. On the partial removal of the bandages at the Infirmary it was found that the man was shockingly burnt, and the medical man is of the opinion that his recovery is extremely doubtful. His name is Thomas Turner (32) [sic], married, of Ledsham. He is not a collier, but a blacksmith, and he went down the shaft this morning in the usual way to do any shoeing of pit ponies or repairing work that was needed. In health he was a fine, strong young fellow, but his now unconscious and crippled condition moved everyone at the railway station and the Infirmary. He was accompanied to Leeds by two colliers, named John Walton and Joseph Atkinson.” John Walton had survived the pit disaster, helped get George in the lift, and accompanied him up to the pit top, then all the way to Leeds General Infirmary (pictured below in the 1890s):
George recovered, and left Peckfield Colliery and Ledsham. In 1901, he was living at 11 Saw Mill Street, Harrogate, and in 1911 at 17 First Street, Starbeck. George was working as a Blacksmith for the railways. He had three children with Charlotte, but only one had survived, and Charlotte herself passed away in 1913, aged 42. George remarried a widow, Elizabeth Tabbiner (née Laycock), but she died in 1920, so he married for a third time on 5th September 1921 to Jane Elizabeth Beadle (née Shrimplin). They were virtually next door neighbours, with George living at 15 Church Square, Harrogate and Jane at 12A. They stayed at 12A, and George passed away in 1949, aged 77.
30th April 1896. The Peckfield Colliery Disaster at Micklefield 