Story
Samuel Goodall was the son of Joseph Goodall (1799-1890) and Mary Lindley (1808-1872) who married on 2nd January 1829 in Garforth. Samuel was born in Barnsley and christened there on 21st October 1838, but he was brought up in Garforth.
Samuel married Margaret Malham (1844-1892) from Aberford on 11th February 1862 in Garforth, and they had their first son, Thomas, the same year, and had a further 10 children. Samuel’s elderly father moved in with them after the death of Samuel’s mother Mary, and after Joseph passed away, the family left Garforth and moved to Aberford Main Street. The death of Samuel’s wife in 1892 left him supporting four children under the age of 17.
On 30th April 1896, Samuel would have been working in the district that bore his name: Sam Goodall’s Bord, in the North West section of the mine. After the explosion, he looks to have moved North, walking beyond Capell’s Bord, and then reached the far end of the Old North Road. He probably found the Old North Road to be blocked to the South, since the explosion had travelled up the Old North Road, killing Alfred Norton, so he was trying to reach other survivors who he knew would have been working at the coal face. However, he was moving to within 500 metres from the site of the initial explosion, an area which was filling with afterdamp gas. Close by him were father and son Henry and Herbert Martin, Thomas Everett, and George Moakes. Samuel Goodall was not burnt, but he had been injured by roof-falls, and died towards the top of Old North Road. The other four miners close to him had also survived the initial explosion, but were equally trapped, unable to get back down Old North Road, and died when the afterdamp gas overwhelmed them.
Samuel’s body was recovered on 3rd May, and identified at 11am the same day by his eldest son Thomas (1862-1932, pictured below) who was also a coal miner, living on Church Lane, Methley, but he later moved back to Garforth. He said at the Inquest the next day that his father’s face was swollen and his breast was discoloured. Many of those killed by afterdamp poisoning exhibited signs of swelling.
The 9 remaining Goodall children rallied round. The youngest sibling Herbert, who was only 15 years-old when his father Samuel was killed, moved in with his older brother George’s family, and later moved in with his eldest sister Mary Elizabeth, who had married Henry Oxtoby (1864-1931) in 27th June 1885. As another illustration of how many people the Peckfield Colliery disaster affected, and how so many of the families were interlinked, Henry’s brother was Charles Oxtoby who should have been in the mine on the day of the disaster, but overslept, causing William Flowers to leave the mine, and saving his life, as William had been waiting for Charles at the pit bottom. Charles Oxtoby married Ellen Mallinson, whose family were also involved in the rescue efforts, and they lived a couple of doors away from Samuel Goodall, when he lived in Garforth, as Ellen’s mother was Mary Malham, sister of Margaret Malham, Samuel Goodall’s wife.
30th April 1896. The Peckfield Colliery Disaster at Micklefield 