Another story today of a notable person in their 90s. This article is from the Hamilton Advertiser 29th December 1945. “The death on Sunday at his home at Priestfield Terrace High Blantyre, of Mr John Wotherspoon marks the passing of one of the last links with Dixon’s mining disaster. Mr Wotherspoon who had just celebrated […]
As news of the Blantyre Pit Disaster spread on 22nd October 1877, a special train was laid on that afternoon to bring doctors quickly to the scene. The magnitude of so many miners below ground potentially needing medical assistance prompted a wave of many doctors responding. Arriving on the scene were doctors Marshall, Lennox, Loudon, […]
By the afternoon of Monday 22nd October 1877, reporters up and down the country were scrambling to find out more details about the Blantyre Disaster that had unfolded that morning. It would take larger newspapers like Edinburgh Evening News, who determined for the “scoop”, could call upon reliable contacts in the area. Their Hamilton correspondent […]
By midday on Monday 22nd October 1877, news of the colliery disaster in Blantyre was travelling rapidly around Britain. Even in those times of slower, more basic communication, the established telegram network was being worked frantically as newspapers all over the UK picked up the breaking tragedy. On Monday afternoon the Gloucester Citizen rushed to […]
A third pit disaster in the space of 2 years fell upon Dixons Collieries this time on the 2nd of July 1879, with the loss of 28 lives. The 1879 disaster occurred in the ell coal, the shallowest of the three seams. The coal was worked from number 1 pit, which was the downcast. […]
Just 1 year after the Blantyre Pit Disaster of 1877, William Dixons Ltd suffered another terrible below.Putting a more personal insight into this, Mr Thomas Murdoch had died in 1877 in the explosion, then his brother and father died a few months later in the following incident. We can only imagine how the rest of the […]
Anne Mikolay asked me, “My great grandfather, John Taggart, worked in the Bothwell Castle Colliery, and had a fatal accident on July 24, 1916. He and his wife and children lived in Shuttle Row. My research indicates notification of the accident was placed in the Hamilton Advertiser on August 12, 1916. Can you please tell […]