Story
John Charles Ball was born on 9th September 1876 in Blackwell, Derbyshire. His parents were Charles Ball (whose story is also covered separately) and Elizabeth White. Although his father was living in Swillington, John (also known as Jack) was living in Garforth. Of all the survivors, John has provided the most vivid account of the disaster. He was interviewed by reporter Reg Abbiss for an article which was printed 6th May 1955:
Spring brings ghastly memories for old miner
Last living survivor of Peckfield disaster
Many are the references even 60 years later to that dark day in the spring of 1896 – the most lamented day in the history of Peckfield colliery, Micklefield – when 63 miners lost their lives in an underground explosion. Few will be able to comprehend fully the horror and tragedy of the disaster which sent the blast sweeping through coal face workings to cut down men at their work with the speed of lightning. Memories have dimmed over the years in spite of tales being passed on from father to son, but there is one man – the last living survivor of that shocking fatality – whose vivid recollection of events on that fateful day is as clear as though they happened only yesterday.
Mr. John Charles Ball, of Syke House, Swillington Common, is 78 now, a retired miner of many years’ experience, possessing a chesty cough which constantly reminds him of an experience that Micklefield which, had it occurred a few moments earlier than it actually did, would have drawn an abrupt line across his career at the age of 19.
“Aye, we had quite the time that morning,” he admitted as he recounted for my benefit the story of the disaster survived by only a handful of men. On that morning, April 30, 1896, his father who also worked underground at Peckfield, set off some 45 minutes ahead of his son.
Fateful morning
Young John, or “Jack” as he was known, set off from Garforth with a number of workmates: Edward Goodall, Henry Tallett, Joe and Walter Jackson (brothers), Jackie, Arthur and George Simpson, also brothers. They left bright sunshine above to enter the cage and descend the narrow, black shaft. It was Jack’s habit to stand about for a few moments at the pit bottom to accustom himself to the darkness, but on this particular morning his pit deputy was in rather an aggressive mood and, deciding that it would be better not to incur the man’s wrath by appearing to idle, Jack made his way forward in the direction of the coal face. He joined his father, making his way through a trapdoor just off the “main road” and a few moments later he was to thank providence that his deputy’s temper had put him so quickly out of harm’s way. Jack took off his waistcoat and was just pulling his shirt over his head when he and his father stopped and listened hard. A far-off rumble increased in intensity with alarming rapidity until it sounded like thunder amplified ten thousand times, said Jack.
The explosion
It flashed through the workings from the other side of the pit like a “cannon-gone-mad” and reverberated in the confined space. The explosion took place in the road but a few yards away from the crouched and terrified men. It tore off trapdoor was as though they were paper attachments. Jack realised then only too well that had he stayed outside in the road to get his second sight he would have been caught in the blast. He said a silent prayer of thanks. Thick, choking dust clogged the workings as the men struggled to get out. Several of them joined Jack and his companions, and Jack set off to find his deputy. He could not see where he was going on account of the “dust fog” but he stumbled down the road feeling his way along by trailing his hand on the wall. The dust became thicker and the atmosphere humid on account of the air fan having been put out of action. “It was like being in a hot oven with the door shut,” Jack recalled. His senses began to swim and he was forced to turn back. He hurried along as fast as he could to warn the party of survivors of the death-dealing damp and dust which would eventually overtake and smother them.
Fortuitous stumble
Back with his companions they found a road a little clearer thanks to a breeze which had penetrated the workings. The men walked on in the dark and were almost about to give themselves up for lost when Jack’s feet fouled the bell-wires. Using these as a guide he headed the eager men towards the shaft-bottom. On the way a Sherburn man, Jack Sissons, caught his foot against something on the ground and found that it was the dead body of the deputy. Unable to do anything, the men moved on and reached the shaft where Jack Sissons’s shout was acknowledged from above. It was decided that the rescuers would have a better chance of bringing the men to the surface if they moved further along to the fan shaft, as the main cables were down. They did so and en route came across a Micklefield man whose hair had been removed and skin scraped off his hands by the explosion. In due course, shortly before 11a.m. am., the cage was lowered and the men found themselves back again on the surface. “I was never more delighted to see the sun,” Jack told me soberly. His father, he remembers, was persuaded to go back down the pit to help rescue a miner trapped further in the workings and he did not come up again for several hours.
Career ended
Jack left Peckfield Colliery some months later to take up employment at Garforth pit, where he stayed for several years. Then he moved to Bowers Colliery, Swillington, at which he worked for 25 years before retiring through ill health in 1940. Up to the age of 50 he had good health, but for the past few years he has been troubled by his chest – painful reminder of the dust he breathed into his lungs when groping his way along underground after the explosion. For a man of 78 his eyesight is quite good, but his hearing is slightly defective. “Nothing to worry about. I can hear quite clearly if you speak up a bit,” Jack says. He and his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Ellen Ball (who is 73), have reared ten children (eight are living), and they have 12 grandchildren and one great grandchild. One of their grandchildren is married to the niece of comedian Albert Modley. The mining tradition in the Ball family goes on, Jack’s eldest son being a collier.
Grand couple
Mr. and Mrs. Ball, who have been married for 54 years have spent all their married life at Swillington (apart from the first three years during which time they lived at Garforth). They are a grand couple, a typical example of, as they say in Yorkshire, “a reight good pair.” They take life in their strides, but each year at about this time Jack’s thoughts wander back to that spring day in 1896, all the ghastly details of which still leap with startling clarity to his mind. He remembers that day, and as one of the very few survivors, he is grateful for his deliverance.
Samuel Cheesbrough (1896-1986) of Kippax was a 3 month-old baby amongst the crowd at the pit head on the day of the disaster, and in later life held an interest in researching the story. He managed to find John Charles Ball in Swillington, and interviewed him. This a transcript of the article John gave Samuel, which was printed on 15th February 1962:
Former Miner (85) recalls 1896 Colliery disaster
Mr John Charles Ball, of Syke House, Swillington Lane, Leeds, is interested in the news that the powers of the Micklefield Colliery Explosion Relief Fund may be widened. Mr Ball, an 85-year-old ex-miner, believes he is the only living survivor of the Peckfield Colliery disaster of 1896. It was to care for the injured and the dependents of victims of this disaster that the fund was originally established. Now, 66 years after the explosion in which 63 men died, the fund stands at £6,000 and only one beneficiary remains, Mrs L. Shillito (73) of Micklefield. Mrs Shillito’s husband was in the pit when the disaster occurred and was totally disabled for 12 years before his death in 1943.
The Memory
“I was there too when the explosion happened,” says Mr Ball. “It was a play day at the pit, but over 100 of us went down. We weren’t getting paid for going down, but we were helping ourselves by getting ready for the following day’s work.” Mr Ball was 19 at the time and working with his father, a coal face worker. The memory of what happened is stamped on his mind, and sounds almost incredible in these days of strict safety precautions. “I was a bit late going down the shaft and my father had gone ahead when I reached the bottom,” he says. “We had no safety lamps then, so I lit my candle and walked for 20 minutes till I found him. He was smoking his pipe, waiting for my arrival.” The explosion followed in seconds. Mr Ball had just hung up his coat and was getting his shirt when they heard the first blast. He kept his shirt wrapped round his head as debris hurtled around him. “Other explosions followed,” says Mr Ball. “When all was quiet father and I set off, climbing over the debris. It was so thick with dust we couldn’t see a thing, but after a while other men passed us till there were about nine in our party.” After a conference the party decided to send Mr Ball, the youngest at the time, to see if he could find the deputy. One man lent him an oil lamp to supplement his candle. “I came to a place where the roof bar had fallen and let the roof down,” he said. “Climbing over, I fell and lost both lamp and candle. So I struck matches till I found them again.” But it was no use, for round the next corner Mr Ball met such terrific heat that he had to retreat, fighting for breath. He returned to the party and they set off in the opposite direction. “In the end we reached the pit bottom without help”, he said. “But there were times when my hair stood on end, like the time that one of our party stepped on the body of our dead deputy, the man I had been trying to find.”
2s. 3d. a ton
“Those were different days,” said Mr Ball. “Men working with picks by the light of tallow candles (which they had to buy) were paid 2s 3d for every ton of coal they hewed. I worked for my father, who paid me 4s 6d a week, and that was all I had till I got married. In June I shall have been married 62 years.” Three days after the disaster Mr Ball got a temporary job in Garforth pit. When Peckfield Colliery was re-opened three weeks later he returned there. He had to retire from mining through ill-health at the age of 64.
Never drawn a penny
“I have never drawn a penny from the Explosion Relief Fund,” he said. “I was told at the time that I should have to provide proof of physical injury, so I never bothered. About 1917 I applied again, and was asked to show proof of how I had suffered through the disaster. There are some ways of suffering that you can’t set down on paper. I was only 19 when it happened. What I went through that day has affected my whole life, and the memory has grown worse with the years.”
Samuel Cheesbrough was also sent a letter by Emily Braithwaite (née Pawson, 1895-1982), which is transcribed below:
25.04.1971
Dear sir
I always enjoy your letters in the press. It will soon be the time of the Micklefield explosion 1896 April 30th. I was only a baby, 6 months old. My father, George Pawson and his 2 brothers Robert and Brian, were with the first to go down the pit to help to rescue, and my father found the last man 3 weeks after in what they called a Gob Hole. I am now getting old and thought you might like to have a letter I received some years ago. My father’s mother and sister-in-law helped to lay the dead out. It was a sad affair and my father would never talk about it. He worked for 50 years as a night deputy, as also did his 2 brothers (150 years in all at Micklefield.) They all lived to be over 80 years old. Their father died suddenly only 42. He was a farmer and lived at Walton, Boston Spa. My granny brought the family up without any help (3 boys and 2 girls) eldest 8 years old, and my father the youngest 1 years old, same day his dad died. She walked to Tadcaster each week with a basket of eggs, and one of butter and carried her provisions home. What a lovely family they were – poor but happy. She lived to be nearly 90. I was always loved and well looked after by the sons and daughters. I hope you can read this letter, but my best specs are being repaired.
Yours sincerely
E Braithwaite
The letter Emily received, and passed on to Samuel Cheesbrough, was from John Charles Ball, and this letter is transcribed below, with corrections in parenthesis:
21st April 1953
Mrs Braithwaite
Dear Madam
It seems so nice to have a letter from you. Well, I did know your father. We used to walk together on the way to work, but he did not work in my district, and I also knew your uncle, Robert Pawson. He worked in the next place to where me and my father worked, but he was not working that day. I was much interested in what you said in your letter about the man they found 3 weeks after the explosion. I could quite understand him having the scarf tied round his mouth. Well, it will soon be again here: 57 years since on the 30 of April 1896. Well, you was saying I should be very young then, well I was between 19 and 20 years old, living with my father. He died in 1921 Feb 11th, 78 years.
On the morning of the explosion, I went on to work with other 7 men out of Garforth. Poor souls, I never forget their names, and I was the only one to get back home again out of the 8 alive. Well, nothing important happened until I got to the pit. The buzzer was blowing 7am when I was riding down the shaft. When we reached the bottom, I turned into the East District and there met my deputy Mr. Shillito who lived in Micklefield. I said, “Good morning Jim, have they all gone?” meaning my father and all the other workmen to their working places. But my Deputy seemed a bit rusty as if something had upset him that morning, and he replied, “Aye, and it’s time thar were off.” So as instead [of] sitting down to get my second sight after coming down from the pit top, as we usually did, I struck a match, lit my candle, and set off into my working place. And a good job for me that I did, for had I wasted time, I would have been killed in the main road, which must have been terrible. To get to my working place, I had to go up a board that the coal [came] down, but before I reached the top of the board, I had to turn to my left hand and through a big trapdoor that parted the intake air and the return air. So I went on a bit and turned right again into the place where me and father worked. Well I just got there and was talking to father, at the same time taking my jacket and waist[coat] off, and putting my two bottles of ginger beer to the side, when we began to hear a big rumbling noise at the other side of the pit. Well, it increased, both the noise and the wind, which only seemed moments, [until it] were round on us. The door which the wind had to break went off like [a] cannon. It [was] awful to hear while [it] lasted, and [the wind] went down the return air way and back to the upcast shaft.
So that when all the noise had died down, I said to father, “There[’s] something gone wrong somewhere.” He said to me, “It[‘s] an explosion, lad.” So I said to father, “Let[’s] go out in the main board [and] see if we can hear or see anyone else about.” So off we set. When we got to where the door had been, only the two door posts stuck up amongst the bricks, so that we climbed over as best we could. Because of dust you could not see half a yard before you. So that when we got into the main board we could hear the men talking, but could not see their lights for dust. So I said to father “Shout to them and ask if they [are] alright.” So he did, and they came down to us and we decided to look in two more places. Well, two went up one Gate and 3 of us up the other Gate. We were about 9 all told. So when we were collected together, Mr Atack says to me, “Well you[‘re] the youngest Jack. You better go and find the Deputy, and see what[‘s] gone wrong.” So I said, “You had better lend me your little hand lamp, and all stop here in one place so that I know where to find you when I come back.” So off I set back down the board that I came up in the morning. When I got about 300 yards down, I could see half a yard before me. I had not gone much further before I tumbled head long over a bar. It had blown out. Well I thought I had tumbled over a man. My hair stood on my head as I had lost both lights with falling, so that I had to stop on my knees until I could get matches out of my pocket in the dark. I lit the candle and then [the] lamp. I got up and looked to see what I had tumbled over and saw that it was a bar that [had] blown out. So I went further on, but had to back turn. The air at that point was red hot, so I scrambled to where the air was a little better, [and] fell on my knees to get my wind. If I had been an old man, I would never have got back. Well, I set off again back to where I left the others and told them that if there was a road on the return air way, we had better be going as i[n] time it would get round on us and we would be smothered. So we all set off on the return air way. We had to pass our Gate, so I said to father, “I am going back in our place to fetch my coat and bottles. I will catch you up before [you] get out on the main engine plain.” And so I did. We were expecting going through two doors but the force of wind had taken them out on the main road, so that we were there, all of us, lost. [I] did not know [where] we were, until I happened to get my feet entangled in the bell wires. So I said to them, “We [are] in the main road.” How did I know? I got my feet in the bell wires, and we must keep to [the] right for the pit bottom, so off we set as best we could. [We could] not see for dust. Mr John Sissons first one, the second my father, and the others following on. Well, we did not seem to go only a few yard[s] when John Sissons said “O Lord, there[‘s a] man there.” I said not, because [I] could see no[-one]. He was buried. But he said again, “I know there is, I had my foot on him and was trembling all over him.” So that I got on my knees and scraped all the dust away where his feet had been, and I got the biggest shock of my life. It was our Deputy, dead. And he had saved my life earlier in [the] morning by being a bit rusty with me. Well, we could do no more for him, he was dead, and so me and John Sissons [made] our way to the pit bottom, leaving father and the other men gazing on the body of Mr James Shillito. So that when [we] got close in the pit bottom, all was still as death. I had my left hand on the wall, so that I knew when we were [at the] far end. We could still not see for dust, so I said, “Come back to me Jack, we [are] in the pit bottom.” So he came back to me and we found our way to [the] shaft, and by the [look] of it as we should not get out in a month[‘s] time. Well, there was nothing to signal to [the] pit top with, so I said to Jack, “You shout up and see if they can [come] down to us.” So he shouted up and instead of anybody answering down the shaft, it was [a] man in the West side that was alive. Well, we got an answer down [the] shaft. We could not see the condition of our pit bottom, so we shouted and asked them to get down to us at No.2 shaft, so they said they would. So that we went off to find the man that had been shouting to us. It turned [out] to be Mr George Hicks of Micklefield. Poor man, he was in a sad way when we found him. My ginger beer came in very useful. Poor man, he was parched.
Thank you for your letter. Please excuse mistakes. Well cheerio.
J C Ball
John Charles Ball married Elizabeth Ellen Kettlewell (1880-1965) in Swillington on 2nd June 1900. He passed away in St James Hospital, Leeds on 3rd May 1962 aged 85. He was the penultimate survivor of the Peckfield Colliery Disaster to pass away, as Fred Nutton was the last survivor, who died in 1964.
30th April 1896. The Peckfield Colliery Disaster at Micklefield 