Denaby Main, South Yorkshire, 1883

 The Coroner and the Superstition of Colliers.

An inquest was held at the Reresby Arms, Denaby Main, yesterday, before Mr Wightman, coroner, and a jury, of whom Mr Longley was foreman, touching the death of John Wall, aged 14 years, until recently employed at the Denaby Main Colliery. Mr Gerrard, HM Inspector of mines, was present, and Mr Chambers, manager of the colliery, appeared to watch the case on behalf of the colliery company.

Benjamin Wall, a collier, employed at Denaby Main, said he was the deceased's father. His son would have been 14 years of age next birthday, and had been employed in the pit for one year and five months as a pony driver. Both himself and his son were employed on the night shift. Deceased worked in the drift; he was not subject to fits nor to attacks of giddiness. He did not hear of the accident until ten minutes to seven the next morning. His son was brought home dead at seven o'clock. From what he could learn respecting the accident he had no occasion to blame anyone concerning the matter. In answer to a question as to whether the deceased was kept in the pit for something like two or three hours before the doctor saw him, the witness said he heard that the accident took place somewhere about four in the morning.

John Wharmsley, contractor for driving a stone dritt, said he knew the deceased, who was a pony driver. He would have had to drive his pony perhaps 200 yards. The tubs drawn by the animal were laden with stone, not coal. He last saw the deceased alive about five o'clock on the morning of Friday. He was then starting away with one tub. Witness saw him start; he was walking; he did not ride, as he was not allowed to do so. Deceased generally used his iron lockers, but on that occasion he only had one iron and one wooden one. The incline gradient was 1 1/4 inch in a yard. When he next saw the deceased, the boy was lying dead.

James Holland corroborated the evidence given previously respecting the finding of the body. He did not know how the accident had happened. No stone had dropped from the corve, and it did not seem as if it had been off the rails. The boy had driven the pony for six months on the same road, and for the same men. There were 15 cwt. or 16cwt. of stone in the tub. He helped to carry the body a distance of 35 yards from the scene of the accident, and about 300 yards from the pit bottom. Deceased was dead when he was found. 

In answer to a question from the Foreman respecting why the body had been kept to the pit until seven o'clock in the morning, witness said he had nothing to do with it. 

The Coroner: If you had kept him in the pit for two hours alive when injured, it would have raised a very nasty question for some of you. The witness said he believed the body was not removed so quickly as otherwise it might have been out of due respect for the father's feelings. It was thought advisable to let the father get out of the pit, instead of taking the body straight to his son in the bottom. Mr Chambers said that was the object for which the body was kept. The Coroner said it was for the father of the deceased to complain if anyone did.

A Juror said a doctor should have been sent for, but that was not done, as the body was put on one side. The witness said the body was not put on one side. A Juror: The body was kept back on purpose to keep the pit from playing. The Witness: No man breathing can say that. The Coroner then inquired of the father of the deceased whether he found any fault with the way in which the body was treated after dead. - He said he did not know which boy was injured for some time [sic]. The Coroner said they had heard what the last witness had said. 

One juryman thought that there had been very indecent delay in not getting the body of the deceased out of the pit. He (the deceased's father) had heard that there was an obstruction in the pit, which was full of empty corves, and that the body was not removed immediately out of respect for him. Mr Law said one man came to his house and said they could not make it convenient to get the body out until the full corves were removed. He had heard of the accident, but could not learn whowas the injured party, although something struck him that his boy was injured. He kept waiting to see his two boys coming.

The Coroner said he and the inspector were both satisfied that the affair was an accident. If the lad had been alive, had shown any symptom of life whatever, and had been kept in the pit for two hours, one hour, or even a half or a quarter of an hour, it would come with a very bad grace, and he would have felt bound to express a very strong opinion on the matter. If the lad was dead beyond all earthy doubt, it did not seem to him that there was any necessity for the urgency or haste that there would be if the lad was alive. 

Holland's explanation was really a bit of fine feeling - that they did not like to go and plump the father in the face with his dead son. He did not know whether there was any superstition in the case. He was told that all the men in a pit insisted on throwing their tools down directly a man was killed, and would not work while a dead body was in the pit. It was merely superstition. He did not know why they all gave over working because there was a man killed. He did not see the necessity for closing a pit because a man was killed. He was quite of opinion with the inspector that it was an accident pure and simple. With regard to the circumstance of the case as to how the boy was killed, he said it must remain a mystery, as no one observed the accident or could give a clue as to how it was caused.

The Foreman: Why didn't they let the men know that there was a dead body in the pit? The Coroner: That's a bit of superstition, I suppose. Another Juror: I don't see how a man is capable of judging whether another one is dead or not if he is not a medical practitioner. The Coroner said if there had been any question as to the death, that subject would have arisen. A verdict of "Accidental death" was then returned.

Sheffield Independent, 24th July 1883.

Derbyshire, 1880

In another case recorded this week the ending was not so happy, especially to one of the parties concerned, resulting as it did in an appeal to the County Magistrate, and in three months' hard labour to the astrologer involved. The scene is shifted from the Highlands [prev. story] to Derbyshire, and the two chief actors are not crofters but colliers. It would appear that one Levi Cooke eked out his income as a collier by the proceeds of such soothsaying as he could manage to secure. 

A brother collier named PAtrick Smith loses £90, and he, accordingly, knowing Levi's acquaintance with black art, applied to him, asking who had the money. Having heard Patrick's tale of his misfortune, the wise man consulted a book, looked grave, and wrote something mysterious on a slate. He was at last able to inform the anxious inquirer that the money would be returned. The person who had taken it would bring it back. For this satisfactory information Smith paid the astrologer two shillings. Ten days pass away, and yet no money comes back. Another call on the necromancer results in another assurance that the money would certainly be returned. Meantime, as if to make matters doubly sure, the professional man gives the loser of the money a round piece of glass to look through, but nothing came of it - at least no money to Smith.

Somehow or other the police were induced to make a call on the wizard, whose house was found to contain a large number of mystic lore, including "Celestial Philosophy," "Orion's Prophetic Guide and Weather Almanac," and several copybooks filled with discourses on astrology. There was a note which ran thus:- "She can have prescriptions from me, and advice for 14 stamps each time until the evil spirits are expelled from her blood and body." Letters were also discovered showing that this learned collier's patients had as much confidence in him as had ever one in his family physician.

What the collier made off his clientele may be supposed to have been considerably more than collier ever made in the mine even in the palmy days of chicken and champagne. But the efforts of the best and most beneficient of the friends of the people are sometimes very ungraciously received. The great unpaid did not show that sympathy with this philanthropic collier that might have been expected from so enlightened a body, the result being that Cooke, like other benefactors born too soon, has been laid up in prison, not to be restored to his native village till three long moons have rolled away. [...]

Dundee Courier, 16th July 1880.

Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, 1871

 Scotch Superstition.

A distressing accident occurred at the Drumpellier Tunnel Coalpit, Coatbridge, which resulted in the death of a child ten years of age. It seems that there is a notion prevalent among the colliers that the confined air of a coalpit acts as a powerful curative for whooping-cough. Acting upon this idea a collier, named Michael Dollan, had taken his son down to the upper seam of the pit where he was working, in order that the boy might have the advantage of the attribuuted remedial virtues of the vitiated air in curing a severe cought that he had been labouring under.

After being down for some time the child had left his father's side in search of drinking water, and having in the dark proceeded in the direction of the shaft, he walked right into it, falling a distance of 25 fathoms. When his body was brought to the surface it was found that his head had been literally crushed to atoms, and his body otherwise fearfully mangled. - Glasgow Herald.

 Fifeshire Journal, 5th January 1871.

Broughton, Wrexham, 1872

 A Ghost in a Coal Pit.

The present tide of prosperity in the coal trade has been disturbed at the Broughton Colliery, near this town, by the appearance of a ghost in the underground workings, which has had the effect of frightening some of the colliers from the pit. None of the men profess to having had a sight of the spirit who appears to have taken up his abode in this "vasty deep," but they all confess to having heard at times the most unearthly sounds, and when they proceed to search for the cause the same noises are heard in quite an opposite quarter. The fear that has taken hold of the men is such as to interfere considerably with the working of the colliery, and it shows that colliers, like sailors, are excessively superstitious on the ghost question.

Wrexham Advertiser. (In Reynolds's Newspaper, 18th August 1872)

Leicestershire, Northumberland, Manchester (1927)

 Some queer beliefs about birds are given in "Bird Facts and Fallacies," by Lewis R. W. Loyd, which Hutchinson and Co. publish at 10s 6d to-day.

Migrating birds have often conveyed the impression to the poetically minded that they contain the "souls of departed spirits," and, with regard to the lapwing, Mr. Loyd declares that some people believe these birds are metamorphosed old maids, and the green sandpipers metamorphosed old bachelors.

Some interesting stories are told of the plover, and it is stated that "Leicestershire colliers who hear the cry of these birds refuse to go down into the mine until the next day, and that they gave warning of the great colliery explosions at Hartley and Wigan."

Staffordshire Sentinel, 11th February 1927.

Pontypool, Monmouthshire, 1904.

Ghost Scare in a Mine.

The presence of a supposed ghost at Brace's Level, Pontypool, has caused quite a scare amongst the eighty workmen employed at the mine, says a contemporary. The level is owned by Messrs. Baldwin, Limited, and in the course of business some workings about 150 years old have been reopened. The colliers were startled and alarmed to see a figure with a naked light in its forehead walking about the workings, tapping the roof, and examining the sides. The workmen fled in terror from the scene, and one of them says he heard unearthly groans in the old workings. The story of the ghost has affected some of the employees to such an extent that they positively refuse to work alone. The strange part of the business is that the man with the light in his forehead can only be seen from one direction. The women living near the colliery are, of course, in a state of fear over what has become known as "Brace's ghost."

Witney Gazette and West Oxfordshire Advertiser, 17th December 1904.

Newcastle, 1917

 Gossip by Elfin.

The Earth and the "Evil One."

Following upon what I had to say yesterday regarding the long-established custom among miners of laying the pit idle when a fatality occurs in the mine, a correspondent reminds me that to understand the organisation of such a custom we must go back to the ancient beliefs in the oldest traditions; that the earth belongs to the Evil One, and that this spirit of the earth demands a sacrifice before any displacement of the rocks or the crust of the earth demands a sacrifice before any displacement of the rocks or the crust of the earth can take place for a building. 

The Church has perpetuated this belief in two familiar customs, that of consecrating the burial place of the dead, and of placing coins under the foundation of sacred buildings. It was an old belief that the "Evil One" claimed the first corpse that was buried in a new churchyard, and to avoid this calamity a dog was usually taken into the enclosure and then buried alive, thus cheating Satan of his due.

There is, however, historic evidence to verify the custom of burying human remains in the foundations of new buildings, which were the offering to the God of Earth, and which took the form of a favourite dog, slave, or the child of a vassal being built into the foundation walls of the building. The Romans were the first to substitute images and busts for the animal form.

Haunted Mines.

An old miner told my correspondent many years ago that he firmly believed that the mines were haunted by evil and mischievous spirits that dwelt in the old workings, and that he had experienced the result of their strange doings, when all the men's picks were blunted, and frequently the spectre was heard rushing through the mine with a sad, moaning sound, which made all tremble with fear. It is related that miners have turned pale at the recollection of the fright they got, yet the same men when the terrible accident took place at Hartley Colliery, and upwards of 200 men and boys lost their lives, faced death in search for their entombed fellow workmen. 

And this was the locality where "Cutty Soams," the spirit of the mine, was a familiar tradition and belief. A belief in the old superstitions of the past does not necessarily make men cowards; but all evidence goes to prove that the custom has come down from the far-off ages, when miners in all parts of the world believed that the Spirit of Evil claimed a sacrifice for the invasion of the earth under his sway.

"Cutty Soams."

The older generation in Northumberland are, of course, familiar with the legend of "Cutty Soams" to which my correspondent refers, but the younger people may scarcely have heard of it in these days, when the old fashioned superstiitons are seldom talked of. You could not get anybody to believe in these enlightened times that "Cutty" ever existed, but in the long ago he doubtless exercised the imagination of our forebears as something very real, and was regarded as one of the mischievous goblins that haunted the bowels of the earth. Like many another spell of a bygone era, "Cutty" is obsolete, and his antics are but as a tale that is told. 

He's "vanished like the baseless fabric of a vision," / His occupation gone - completed his last mission. / The light of science he disdained to brook / And fled- when other phantoms took their hook.

Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 20th March 1917.