Story
John Gerrard, F.G.S., was born in Ince-in-Makerfield in 1850, and was the first of two sons born to William Gerrard (1828-1873) and Ann Ingham (1828-1907) who had married in 1849. William Gerrard was originally a clerk or bookkeeper, but late in his life he became a mining engineer, and moved to Ince Hall, Wigan, after previously living more modestly on Nottingham Road, Ince. John’s younger brother James would follow his father’s career as a mining engineer, but a year after his father’s death, John Gerrard was appointed one of H.M.’s Inspector of Mines in January 1874, after being educated for the mining profession. He moved to Southgate, Wakefield and starting lodging. He joined the Freemasons, Lodge of Unanimity, in Wakefield as an Inspector of Mines on 1st April 1878, a lodge which his fellow Mining Inspector, Henry Slade Childe, would later join in 1887. Both men were in attendance at the Peckfield Colliery Disaster. On 6th September 1886, John was at the Bland’s Arms attending an Inquest into the death of George Mosby at Peckfield Colliery. George’s son, Lot Mosby, also gave evidence at the Inquest, and would later be a survivor of the Peckfield Colliery Disaster.
In 1891, he was living at 24 Cheapside, Wakefield with a widowed Servant, Mary Mitchell and her two young daughters. John claimed to be single, but later moved back to Ince, taking Mary with him, and Mary had a further daughter in 1896 without re-marrying, so they are likely to have been in a relationship. In 1892, John took charge as Mining Inspector of the Manchester and Ireland District (No.6), which included South and East Lancashire, Kent, Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex and Ireland, but the nature of his work meant he was a frequent visitor to mines throughout the country, including North Staffordshire and Yorkshire. He was a prominent member of the Manchester Geological and Mining Society, to which he was elected in 1892, and elected President in 1904.
After the Peckfield Colliery Disaster, John returned to Garforth the same year at the inquest into the mining death of one of the rescuers, John Wardle Allinson.
John died at the age of 70 on 1st July 1920, at Silverdale, Broad Oak Road, Worsley, Lancashire, having only recently retired from nearly half a century of employment. His photograph was taken at the Pretoria pit disaster in December 1910, in which 344 men and boys were killed.
30th April 1896. The Peckfield Colliery Disaster at Micklefield 