On the morning of Saturday 15th June 1895, a very serious accident took place at the new Whistleberry Colliery at the time being sunk for Mr Archibald Russell of Auchinraith.
Two sinkers Hugh Connelly and James Kyle were ascending the shaft (which at the time had been dug down to 130 fathoms). The engineman having received the usual notice set the machines going to raise the kettle. However, some time on the way up, it began to violently sway from side to side from one side of the shaft to the other and the result being the men suffered terrible injuries to their heads and bodies, their heads, arms and backs bruised badly.
How they were not dashed to the bottom of the pit is a mystery.
Medical aid was immediately summoned on their exit at the top and Dr Marshall was sent for from Hamilton. Connelly who had received terrible injuries was dispatched to the Royal Infirmary in the ambulance waggon , whilst Kyle was conveyed to his home in Udston Rows, where he gradually got worse before doctors determined he should go to Hospital too. He was sent on the Monday morning, where he ended up with 2 toes amputated.
It’s difficult these days to comprehend digging such a deep hole without mechanised means and the bravery of those men employed to sink these “vertical holes to hell”. Ai imagines this story in exclusive imagery.
On Social Media, the following comments were received on Facebook:
Tom McGuigan My G/Grandfather was killed in a fall in at Earnock pit. He was 28, left a wife and three kids. Company threw them out the house. My grandfather and his sisters were sent to an orphanage as their mother had no way of supporting them. They were there for nearly two years, she remarried and she got her kids back.
Teresa Logie Tom McGuigan my grand mother was a mcguigan born 1888 orig from Ireland way her mum da and kin and settled here and married
Carol King Horrific times and mine owners? Greed greed – miners just not seen as people
Teresa Logie Awful they days ma dad was a miner he was born 1926