Waterloo Pit Exhibition at Hopewell Colliery: Sunday 30 June (Announce)

by Mike Pinchin , Bedford, England, Saturday, June 15, 2019, 20:53 (2020 days ago) @ steven.carter48@btinternet.com

There’s some good advice from Jeff there. I got a lot of my hits from searching Gloucestershire for “Waterloo Colliery” and “Arthur and Edward Colliery”. In this particular instance the quotation marks are important because otherwise you will get the hits diluted by many references to the individual names. Substituting “Pit” for “Colliery” gets a few more. Of course some of the hits are spurious because they refer to collieries outside Gloucestershire and some are merely reports of the same news in different papers.

The payments were part of something called the Workpeople’s Contributory Scheme. I have not followed up exactly what it was but it looks like, drawing on the nineteenth-century traditions of mutual benefit societies and thrift agencies as well as the culture of trade unions, co-operative societies, and friendly societies, a kind of precursor to the NHS whereby access to treatment could be more or less assured in return for the contributions. They brought together small contributions to pool risk and costs for the workers. E.g. The Gloucester Citizen - Saturday 24 June 1933 – reported the receipt by Gloucester Royal Infirmary of £32 19s 6d from the Arthur and Edward in the week ending 14/06/33. There are plenty of other examples and plenty more companies also made contributions.

These were the 16 fatalities,

Gloucester Journal Saturday 02 February 1856
Warrie WILLIAMS died falling down the pit whilst being drawn up.

Gloucestershire Echo Tuesday 05 May 1914
Henry CHARLES killed by a fall of pipes.

Gloucester Journal Saturday 14 August 1915
John Henry LODGE (37) killed by a fall of coal.

Gloucestershire Chronicle Saturday 25 January 1919
James SMITH (27) killed by a fall of rock.

Gloucester Journal Saturday 18 June 1921
Godfrey MORGAN (40) killed by a fall of roof.

Gloucester Citizen Wednesday 21 February 1923
Edward WATKINS (56) killed by a fall of coal

Gloucester Citizen Thursday 16 June 1927
Godfrey MORGAN (49) died in hospital after being caught by a fall of dirt whilst replacing a prop on April 22.

Gloucester Citizen Tuesday 14 August 1928
Elon WILLIAMS (74) killed by runaway trams.

Cheltenham Chronicle Saturday 01 December 1928
George SCRIVENS (32) killed by a fall of coal and dust.

Gloucester Citizen Saturday 22 October 1932
Oscar Miles DUBERLEY (57) Died of scalds when a boiler pipe burst.

Gloucester Citizen Friday 07 May 1937
William Arthur ORPEN, caravan dweller, asphyxiated in old abandoned airway.

Gloucester Citizen Wednesday 01 February 1939
The funeral report of Horace COOK (23)who died following an accident at Waterloo Colliery.

Gloucester Citizen Thursday 24 August 1939
Eli WILLIAMS died 10 months after receiving spinal injuries from a fall of coal.

Gloucester Journal Saturday 10 January 1942
Lewis Francis William SIMMONDS (39) Died when hit by runaway trucks.

Gloucester Citizen Wednesday 25 February 1948
Charles WILLIAMS (60) died crushed by a truck.

Gloucester Citizen Monday 19 June 1950
Hubert William TAYLOR (47) killed by a fall of coal.