Story
Reuben was born in 1873 in Oakthorpe, Leicestershire, and was the sixth of eight children born to George Winfield (1835-1887) and Elizabeth Harvey (1833-1904) who had married on 9th November 1856 in Donisthorpe, Derbyshire. George was killed on 24th April 1887 in a mining accident at Netherseal Colliery in Derbyshire after being crushed in a roof fall, and George’s widow Elizabeth brought most of her family up North in 1888, where they started working at the Peckfield Colliery. Her eldest daughter, Sarah Ann Winfield (1850-1932) had married Joseph Day (1857-1931) in Church Gresley, Derbyshire on 25th July 1880, and Joseph also worked at Peckfield Colliery. On the morning of the disaster, Joseph Day, Reuben Winfield, and his three brothers: Herbert, Joseph, and Walter arrived at the pit top together at 6:30am, and went down in the lift together. They separated at the pit bottom. Joseph Day and Reuben Winfield were amongst the third group to be rescued, so may have been working together close to the No.1 Dip. Reuben’s three brothers were all killed in the disaster. Joseph Day identified the bodies of his three brothers-in-law at the inquest into their deaths.
In 1897, Reuben married Priscilla Townend (1877-1955) and they moved to 21 West View where they had their two sons John Herbert Winfield (1898-1960, below left) and Cecil Winfield (1901-1956, below right). By 1911, the family had moved to 10 East View, with Reuben still working as a coal miner at Peckfield Colliery. Reuben passed away in 1922, aged 49.
30th April 1896. The Peckfield Colliery Disaster at Micklefield 