The Oaks Colliery disaster killed at least 360 miners in December 1866 – just two weeks before Christmas – and was the world’s biggest industrial disaster of the 19th century, but it remained virtually unknown for 150 years. Even the names of all those who died were not documented until the local community tried to set the record straight and remember the victims of the tragedy. This resulted in (among other things) a documentary called Black Snow which won the Best Research Film of the Year award at The AHRC Research in Film Awards 2018. The director of Black Snow, Stephen Linstead and colleagues from different agencies who collaborated on the memorial project, explain why the men and women who have died in the course of their work, including those from accidents and disasters, should be commemorated on a special day

Darlow, Paul

Hughes, Sarah

Linstead, Stephen Andrew

Miller, Stephen

English

White Rose Research Online

Reframing history: : Commemorating one of the world's biggest industrial disasters

This is a repository copy of Reframing history: : Commemorating one of the world's biggest industrial disasters.White Rose Research Online URL for this paper:https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/158457/Other:Linstead, Stephen Andrew orcid.org/0000-0002-1006-2921, Darlow, Paul, Hughes, Sarah et al. (1 more author) (2019) Reframing history: : Commemorating one of the world's biggest industrial disasters. Arts and Humanities Research Council. eprints@whiterose.ac.ukhttps://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. https://ahrc.ukri.org/research/readwatchlisten/features/reframing-history-commemorating-one-of-the-worlds-biggest-industrial-disasters/   Reframing history: Commemorating one of the world's biggest industrial disasters The Oaks Colliery disaster  k illed at  least  3 6 0  m iners in Decem ber 1 86 6  –  just  tw o w eeks before Christm as –  and w as the w orld’s biggest  industr ia l disaster  of the 1 9 th century, but  it  rem ained virtually unknow n for  1 50  years. Even the nam es of a ll those w ho died w ere not  docum ented unt il the local com m unity t r ied to set  the record st raight  and rem em ber the vict im s of the t ragedy. This resulted in ( am ong other things)  a  docum entary called Black Snow  w hich w on the Best  Research Film  of the Year aw ard at  The AHRC Research in Film  Aw ards 2 0 18 . The director  of Black Snow , Stephen Linstead and colleagues from  different  agencies w ho collaborated on the m em orial project , explain w hy the m en and w om en w ho have died in the course of their  w ork, including those from  accidents and disasters, should be com m em orated on a special day. Why does the Oaks Colliery Disaster still matter?  Professor Stephen Linstead, pictured at the Oaks Colliery Disaster Memorial in Barnsley Town  Centre. Photo courtesy Victor De Jesus. On Decem ber 12th, 1866 an explosion of methane and coal dust at  the Oaks Colliery, Barnsley, killed a reported 334 m iners. A second explosion, so violent  that it  blew the cage out  of the second shaft  and lodged it  in the headgear, killed a further 27 rescuers the following day. But  the pit  hadn’t  finished yet  – though there were no m ore deaths, it  exploded a further 15 t im es over the following days. I t  rem ains the worst m ining disaster in England;  at  the t ime it  was the worst  in the world, and rem ained so for the rest  of the century. But although the two Comm and Reports laid in Parliament  on May 7, 1867 agreed on a figure for the dead of 361, there is no list  of specific nam es to be found. Several lists at  the t ime appeared in various newspapers, but  none have the figure of 361. None have the sam e list  of names, and in each list  there are obvious errors, repet it ions, and m isspellings. Furtherm ore, the report  subm it ted by the subst itute m ines inspector, Dickinson, favoured the explanat ion of shot - fir ing as being the cause. Dickinson was very crit ical of the work system em ployed, and this would have tended to place blam e or at  least  responsibilit y on m anagem ent . Blackwell, the government  comm issioner appointed to report  on the inquest , formed a j udgment , based on the locat ions of the dead and their inj uries, that  a faulty lam p was likely to have been the cause. This would have placed culpabilit y firm ly on the workers. The coroner avoided com ing down on either side, and held back from  recomm ending a specific and full inquiry into the cause of the disaster. The response was press and public out rage, with local gossip of conspiracy and cover-up, but  to no avail. The dead were buried in local cemeteries including St  Paul’s at  Monk Bretton and Christ  Church, Ardsley, where a mem orial raised by subscript ion in 1879 names 35 parishioners laid to rest  there and m ent ions a total of 354 total vict ims, though not  by name. I n 1913, a local benefactor, Sam uel Cooper, raised a private mem orial to the 27 named brave rescuers who died. But  there was no mem orial that  recorded accurately in num ber or name the total num ber of vict im s.  Several were in paupers’ graves, and recent  research led by Stephen Miller suggests that as m any as 169 m ay rem ain underground today. There was no tally system  at the m ines and no requirement  on m ine owners to record a death and receive a death cert if icate. Given the confusion surrounding the disaster, it  was easy for the owners to resist  the charge that  they were at fault , a widely and passionately held public view. Rent ier capitalist  landowners, some of whom  were in parliament , were anxious to play the disaster down. The m inority Conservat ive governm ent  of Derby and Disraeli was t rying to deal with the concurrent  effects of a financial crash, a massive spike in indust rial deaths and injuries, and ext reme pressure for polit ical reform . I f the government  wished to achieve its object ives it  would be unwise for them  to risk losing their collect ive support . The overdue but gam e-changing Great  Reform  Bill was passed in 1867, whilst  the Oaks, instead of being cause celebre, becam e absorbed into the wider indust rial safety review – where it  did nevertheless influence change, especially in the codificat ion of t raining for m ine m anagers and operators.  Soon it  was all but  forgot ten in both the public m ind and scholarship – only a handful of art icles and chapters are devoted to it  in the following century and a half. Fam ilies that  had lost  their menfolk became m at riarchies and carried on with the work of survival. Marking 150 years since the disaster  The approach to the Oaks Colliery. Photo courtesy Alan Andrews. I n 2016 two parallel projects set  out to mark the 150th Anniversary of the disaster. One, led by Stephen Miller of the Dearne Valley Landscape Partnership, funded by the Heritage Lot tery Fund (HLF) , used volunteers to carry out  5,000 hours of archive research into registrar’s and parish records to t ry to correct some of the errors in exist ing lists and provide m ore inform at ion about the dead, what  they did, and where they came from . This research underpinned the Barnsley Museum s exhibit ion When the Oaks Fired, which Stephen curated in 2016-7. They cam e up with a potent ial list  of 383 names of possible vict im s. Another, led by the charity People and Mining and the Nat ional Union of Mineworkers (NUM) , also relied on volunteers to raise m oney for a remarkable mem orial statue, created by “people’s sculptor”  Graham  I bbeson. Dr Sarah Hughes supported People and Mining and the NUM  in their efforts, and the HLF awarded funding for research and educat ional resources as part  of this second init iat ive, which included a book, website, and a short  film . Arts and Hum anit ies Research Council funding allowed this to expand into a m ult im edia Roadshow (Stephen Linstead with m usical director Jed Grimes, which played the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe)  and a CD. The film , Black Snow , directed by Stephen and co-produced with Andy Lawrence, uses virtual reality by ex-m iner Alan Andrews to recreate the disaster and has garnered several internat ional art ist ic, technical and hum anitarian awards, including one from  Hollywood, and, m ost  recent ly Best  Research Film  of 2018 at  the AHRC Research in Film  Awards at  BAFTA. So why is all this at tent ion merited? How is the Oaks st ill relevant  to us today? To take the second quest ion first , one story the film  tells is of a “ left -behind”  com m unity finding itself in rediscovering and rem embering a forgot ten disaster. The heroic, as the Greeks knew well, resides as m uch in enduring, being resilient  and overcom ing t rials. Despite the fact that  this comm unity has alm ost been writ ten off for three decades, like the Oaks widows it  rem ained very m uch alive, and very m uch st ill possessed of those essent ial survival qualit ies of forbearance, creat ivity, discipline, good hum our, pract icalit y, socialit y and m utual caring. I t ’s ext raordinary in it s ordinariness. The interviewees involved in research by Sarah Hughes em phasised a focus on a collect ive approach within their local comm unit ies. They described how the pit  was a place of learning where experienced workers passed on skills and knowledge in relat ion to their work in the colliery, but also in a wider sense in relat ion to ideas, inst itut ions and pract ices.  A deeper understanding of the values and m ot ivat ions held by those living within post- indust rial comm unit ies, in which local inst itut ions and pract ices are rooted, can only enrich policy-m aking seeking to tackle the challenges of such comm unit ies.  Bringing local histories to the fore South Yorkshire Miners Federation - Donations and Payouts Jan 1867. Photo courtesy Andy Lawrence. Regarding the first  quest ion, our inabilit y to resolve some simple quest ions about the facts of the Oaks should provoke some thought  about  what  else we custom arily overlook in our social history. The cont ribut ions of those who cannot  be named was j ust  as im portant as the cont ribut ions of those on whom history’s spot light has shone. This can only be recognised if we educate today’s young on the context  in which their ancestors’ lives were lived, what  was and what  m ight  have been otherwise. Hughes’ part icipants showed great  enthusiasm for this and described the passing on, from  one generat ion to another, of ideas, knowledge and a sense of history. Paul Darlow noted one comm ent  that  ‘you’ve got to fight for a consciousness about what ’s happened in the past , because all history is subject ive, isn’t  it?’ Darlow’s work has shown how this sense of collect ivity imbued the Oaks m em orial projects’ success in bringing together both like-m inded individuals, comm unit ies and agencies. The effects are already tangible, as hundreds of prim ary-age schoolchildren in the area now know the Oaks disaster story and im portant ly its relevance to their local histories. I n 2016 at  the t ime of the disaster’s 150th anniversary, few, if any, local schools covered the disaster in their curriculum and few local people had any fam iliarity with it . Dem and for both the book and DVD and AHRC supported “Roadshow”  act ivit ies, current ly extending between Scot land and Kent , has revealed keen and passionate interest  from a m uch wider audience of teachers, lecturers and the general public. The film  has had exposure in internat ional com pet it ion and through various media out lets – press, magazines, radio, and TV – and around seven m illion people have now seen or heard about the disaster.  England's worst  m ining cataclysm is slowly finding its unforgettable place in the nat ional m em ory. Rem em bering the events at  the Oaks Colliery in 1866 enabled the comm unit ies of the former coalfield areas to share their history and important ly reignite their sense of place and t radit ion. I n the face of econom ic, social and polit ical changes which have eroded the class solidarity of these areas, the im portance of this cannot  be overest im ated and the challenge is to build upon and extend this awareness. As Stephen Linstead said in his AHRC Best  Research Film  Award acceptance speech, his film  is “not about  the past , it ’s about the future.”  A call for commemoration  Professor Stephen Linstead, pictured at the Miners Hall, at the NUM Yorkshire office in Barnsley, pictured with a 'Davy' lamp, similar to those that would have been used at the time of the Oaks Colliery Disaster. Photo courtesy of Victor De Jesus. Social, econom ic and polit ical successes were achieved on the back of the service and sacrifice of indust rial and support  workers no less than m ilitary victories – wars are fought  between econom ies as m uch as arm ies, after all. Even when a few major disasters are mem orialized, incidents where one, two or three were killed were rout inely unremarked and unreported. I t ’s t ime that  we, as the UK, m ade an occasion – a day in the year – to simply and with due respect , rem ember and bestow deserved dignity on those who served and sacrificed in the non-m ilitary everyday . Those who, whether managers, workers, or public servants, on land, underground, on sea or in the air, in a single incident  or through long- term effects, expended them selves in the nat ional interest  and died t rying to m ake a living. They deserve no less, and should need to wait  no longer. This feature was co-authored by Stephen Linstead: Professor of Management  Humanit ies and leader of the Managem ent and Humanit ies Research Theme at  The York Managem ent  School, University of York. Dr Sarah Hughes: a consultant with over 15 years of experience managing projects and programm es in the m useum s and heritage sector. Her PhD, from the University of Leicester School of Museum  Studies, explores cultural part icipat ion and value in former coal m ining comm unit ies in South Yorkshire.  Stephen Miller: Form er Com m unity Engagement  Officer for the Dearne Valley Landscape Partnership, curat ing the exhibit ion When the Oaks Fired (2016-17) . He is current ly a freelance heritage consultant . Paul Darlow : A former m iner, and Educat ion and Research Officer for the HLF- funded Oaks Memorial project , authoring The Oaks Disaster:  A Living History  (2017) . He is current ly working with the NUM on archive preservat ion.  

Reframing history::Commemorating one of the world's biggest industrial disasters

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Reframing history: : Commemorating one of the world's biggest industrial disasters

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