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All Saints to hold memorial service for Victoria Colliery disaster

A special memorial service will be held at All Saints Catholic College tomorrow to honour those who died in the Victoria Colliery Disaster.

A special memorial service will be held at All Saints Catholic College tomorrow to honour those who died in the Victoria Colliery Disaster.

Thirty-eight men and boys died on June 14 1866 after an explosion at the Lakes Coal Pit. The youngest, John Thomas Buckley, was just ten years old.

There are believed to be two mine shafts on the grounds of All Saints. The school will unveil a blue plaque, commemorating the 38, which will be blessed by Father Oliver O’Doherty.

The Civic Mayor of Tameside, Cllr Denise Ward, Andrew Gwynne MP and local councillors will also be attending the service at 11.45am, alongside students, governors and relatives of the deceased.

All Saints’ Andrea Coleman has been researching the disaster ahead of Friday’s event. Norman Bamford’s book, ‘We’ll dee with eawr hearts up – Mining Disasters of the Tameside Area’, describes how the Ashton Reporter described the scene as the men were brought out.

“When some of the rescued men were brought to the surface, about one o’clock, the looked scared and frightened, their eyes were fixed as in death, and they were carried away and placed upon a bed of hay on some inclined planks a few yards from the pit mouth.

“The last was a young man with his face blackened with the dust, and when he was placed on his back upon the inclined plank, no one could tell whether he was alive or dead. The surgeon examined the unfortunate man carefully, and pronounced him dead, upon which a thrill of horror ran through those who stood and looked upon that face which even beneath it’s sooty appearance showed a pleasant countenance, as though life had flown in the midst of a pleasant dream.

“The next body brought up was that of a lad, apparently 14 years of age, with a pleasant smile about his features as anybody would desire to see. He was taken in the arms of a collier, and carried down the brow from the pit bank to a cart, on the bottom of which was a well-filled bed of hay, and as the lifeless body hung in the arms of his fellow workmen, a shriek was heard in the crowd of women, and then the scene became too harrowing for the pen to describe.

“The cage commenced its work of bringing from the earth the bodies of those who in a few more hours will be cone more entombed in the earth for the last time. A sadder spectacle cannot be conceived.

“It was a melancholy sight to witness the arrival of body after body to the pit mouth, and as they reached the surface they bore no marks of external injury, but each and all presented the appearance of having met their death by suffocation. The bodies were wrapped in a quilt, and then conveyed to carts provided for the purpose, and if owned were sent to their homes, providing that they resided in the township. If not owned, or their homes had been outside the township, the bodies were conveyed to an adjacent cottage, which served for a dead house.

“All around the pit bank, and near where the carts for the reception of the dead stood, where women looked on with eagerness, and some fear and trembling, and as each body arrived they anxiously inquired the name. The crowd stood round the embankment in mute sympathy as the bodies were conveyed away, but whenever it was that of a young lad, it seemed to send a thrill of horror through the whole, at the anguish of the poor boys’ mothers and sisters and they recognised their sons and brothers.”

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