Story
Robert Henry Nevins was born on 22nd June 1857 in Chapeltown, North of Sheffield. Both he, and his family were quite nomadic. His father was Robert Nevins (1822-1883) who was an engineer, from Manchester, who passed away in Belper. Robert snr. married Ann Clewley (1828-1893) in Aston, Warwickshire on 8th February 1846, and at one time was Manager at Silkstone Colliery, but served time in prison for embezzlement. Ann was from Lichfield, Staffordshire, and after her husband’s death, she re-married John Hepworth on 16th November 1885, aged 57, and passed away in Hemsworth seven years later.
Robert Henry Nevins was charged with intimidation towards other miners during strike action in 1868, when he was just 11 years-old, and was charged again one year later for his part in a riot. In 1871, Robert Henry Nevins was living with his mother Ann in Kimberworth, Rotherham, and was working as a labourer. On 5th January 1875, he was working at Aldwark Colliery, Rawmarsh, Sheffield, when an explosion at the pit claimed the lives of 7 men. 312 men and boys were working in the mine, having started descending at 5:30am. An explosion of firedamp gas occurred in the Barnsley Bed seam, 165 yards below the surface. The blast killed the miners in the immediate vicinity, whose blackened bodies were recovered holding their hands up to their face to shield themselves from the blast. Unlike the Peckfield Disaster, there was no reaction with coal dust, so the blast did not carry any further through the mine. In fact one miner continued working until noon, and was surprised to learn anything untoward had taken place. One of the victims, William Whitehead had only been at Aldwark Colliery for a fortnight, having just survived the Warren Vale Colliery Disaster. The Aldwark disaster was investigated by a local 31 years-old Government Inspector, Frank Newby Wardell, who was later the Chief Inspector of Mines who investigated the Peckfield Colliery Disaster. The press reported that “the question of the abolition of naked lights in pits seems very likely to be solved. There is a very strong feeling abroad – and that feeling is gaining ground amongst the men – that seeing that no pit is safe where naked lights are used, lamps should be adopted, and that the use of them should be made compulsory. The men have great objections to the lamps, partly because of the stringent regulations which are to be observed respecting them, but chiefly because they cannot earn as much by the lamps as by the candles. The adoption of the lamps in some pits where naked lights have hitherto been used would, they say, make a difference in the wages of between five and six shillings per week. In some cases the difference would not be as great. The men, however, think that they ought not to be the losers, and if the use of lamps is made compulsory, an increase of wages will be applied for.” Robert lamented at the Peckfield Colliery Disaster that he was due to get a bravery award for his actions in this disaster, but it never materialised.
For a time, Robert worked as a Porter at Doe Hill Station, Stonebroom, Derbyshire. On 22nd August 1878, he married a domestic servant, Annie Lee, in Burnley, Lancashire. He had met her in a Temperance House. Annie was ten years older than Robert, and was originally from Alconbury, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. The couple had a son the following year, Richard Henry Frederick Nevins (1879-1950). However the marriage was an unhappy one. On 8th October 1880, in the Rotherham Police Court, the Bench issued a warrant for the apprehension of Robert Henry Nevins, collier, who was now employed at Carr House Colliery, close to Aldwark, for neglecting to maintain his wife and child, who, by his neglect, had become chargeable to the common fund of the Rotherham Poor Law Union. On the 2nd August 1880, Robert had been summoned to appear before the Board, but asked for time to consult a legal advisor. He agreed on 7th August to pay the amount due, which was £2 8s., and asked for two months to find the money. As that period expired without his wife receiving any money, Robert was summoned back to court. Robert’s son, Richard was sent away to Surrey, where he remained, joining the army at the age of 14 and later served the Queen’s Royal Regiment with distinction in the First World War, rising to the rank of Captain. He was wounded on 11th November 1918, and was incapacitated thereafter. Annie meanwhile took up work as a domestic cook in Soyland in Calderdale. She passed away in 1909.
Robert was also present at the Carr House Colliery fire in June 1881, when a blaze started in the engine house at the bottom of the shaft, caused by an overturned paraffin lamp around 9pm, which ignited some cotton waste. This drew suffocating fumes around the mine, and two miners had to be carried to safety, from 18 who were working in the Swallow Wood seam at the time. Robert was also present at a third colliery accident. The Peckfield Disaster was his fourth.
Without divorcing Annie, Robert remarried Mary Gibson, née Shooter (1849-1913) on 16th February 1884 in Blackwell, Derbyshire. Both Robert and Mary claimed to be single, so were both bigamists. Mary had married her first cousin Richard Gibson (1852-1923) on 15th April 1873 in Riddings, Derbyshire. The marriage between Richard and Mary looks to have ended after Richard assaulted his own sister Mary Ann Shooter (née Gibson, 1854-1907), who was also Mary’s sister-in-law, after she married Mary Ann’s brother George Shooter. The assault occurred after Richard and Mary Ann’s mother made a Will shortly before her death, which would divide her possessions between Richard and Mary Ann. Mary Ann took the Will home, which Richard took offence to, and punched her to the floor and started kicking her. Richard and Mary had not divorced by the time Mary married Robert Henry Nevins in 1884. In fact, Mary’s parents, William Shooter (1819-1892) and Hannah Radford (1823-1893) continued to refer their daughter as Mary Gibson in their Will dated 6th July 1887, so it seems they had not accepted the legitimacy of her second marriage to Robert Henry Nevins. Fortunately for Nevins, he formed an unlikely friendship with his new wife’s second cousin, William Radford, who was a local preacher, and Colliery Under-Manager. William Radford employed Robert’s services at the Victoria Collieries, Bruntcliffe, Selby, before bringing him to Peckfield Colliery.
Robert and Mary lived at 1 Station Row, Micklefield. On Thursday 30th April 1896, Robert was Deputy of the Black Bed, which had been in use for about 7 years. This seam was the deeper (240 yards from the surface) of the two seams being worked, but wasn’t as profitable as the Beeston Bed (175 yards) which had been in use over twenty years, so consequently youngsters tended to start out in the Black Bed, and Robert tended to supervise and train teams of young lads. A mechanic, Fred Atkinson (aged 35) had just come down from the Beeston Bed to examine the pumps, and Robert was with Fred, Edward Simpson (49), Sidney Revis (19), Tom Nutton (17) and Henry Hague, a fitter. Fred Nutton (10), Joe Wilson (19), Fred Shillito (24), and Thomas Freeman (36) who was new to mining, were nearby in the Black Bed. Robert had just given his report that everything was fine when the explosion happened in the Beeston Bed, and although this was at the extreme opposite end of the mine, in another seam, Robert recalled hearing “a loud booming, followed by a fall of roof.” Edward Simpson heard a clap of thunder and felt the stoppage of air. Joe Wilson was hit by a flying trap door which knocked him over and then saw smoke and dust. The boys in the Black Bed all gathered together to discuss what was happening when a wave of afterdamp sent them all to sleep for an hour. They only woke again when they felt fresh air from the upcast shaft. Sidney Revis found Nevins’ lamp, and waking up, Robert lit it. He was confident it would not react to any gas, as he could tell the fresh air was increasing rapidly. The boys were so terrified after regaining consciousness, they asked Nevins to pray for them. Nevins later said to a reporter: “I am not such a good-living man after all, but I prayed for them with all my heart”
Nevins knew they couldn’t return up the cages, so they had to crawl out of the Black Bed, through a stone drift which connected the Black Bed to the Beeston Bed, but was only used for ventilation. Simpson said he was very concerned for the boys, but with the encouragement of Nevins, they reached the Beeston Bed. Here they were overcome by after-damp again, 600 yards from shaft. Barely able to walk, they had to leave Fred Atkinson behind to reach the No.2 shaft (fortunately he was picked up by the first rescue party after Nevins told them where he was). Tom Nutton said at this point he never expected to see his home village of Aberford again, but they continued to stagger over large heaps of stone and debris, until they eventually reached the bottom of the shaft, where they met other survivors from the Beeston Bed, who later reported that the Black Bed boys were very ill and violently sick. Nevins fainted at the bottom of the shaft, and had to be carried out. He was the second miner to leave the pit, along with Edward Simpson and Fred Nutton. A reporter saw him as he came out after Edward Simpson and wrote: “The under-manager of the lower seam, Mr. Nevins, was the next to be brought to the surface, but he was quite unable to say anything. He was charged with questions from the women, who hung about him and who, with tear-dimmed eyes, through which sometimes a gleam of hope would steal, inquired about lost relatives. He, too, could only shake his head.”
Despite injuries to his arms and legs, Robert turned up at the Pit Yard Saturday morning to volunteer to help the rescue parties on Monday. Speaking to a reporter, he revealed his nickname was Ben Nevins, and after all his pit disasters, he must be hedged round by a divinity of some sort in colliery explosions. “If anyone was in the valley of the shadow I was,” he stated. He also used his experience to correctly state the cause of the explosion: “a sudden fall of roof let in an accumulation of bad gas, which was fired by the naked lights of the men.”
Out of 105 miners who were in the mine at the time, 63 were killed. All 10 men and boys who were in the Black Bed under Robert’s supervision survived.
After the Disaster, Robert and Mary moved to 22 Cliff Terrace, and he continued to work at Peckfield as a deputy. By 1911, they had moved away to Garforth. Mary passed away in 1913 aged 63. On 6th January 1914, Robert’s luck finally ran out. Working at Peckfield Colliery, he was struck by a small roof-fall, whilst he was removing an earlier roof-fall. He was not killed in the accident, but blood poisoning set into his wound, and Robert died on 20th February 1914 aged 54. He left his effects of £61 to another Colliery Deputy John Charles Chappell. He was the second survivor of the disaster to be subsequently killed at the same pit, after Henry Firth Rawnsley was also killed at Peckfield Colliery, on 11th May 1910.
30th April 1896. The Peckfield Colliery Disaster at Micklefield 