http://www.dmm.org.uk/educate/huskar.htm

1838 Huskar Pit Disaster (Yorkshire)

26 children drowned

Although outside the area we cover,
we have included this text here to illustrate the employment of children in the mines,
and the perils associated with that employment.
In the mining community of Silkstone men, boys & girls started work but at about 2 pm a fierce storm started. A warning was sent to the miners, some tried to exit via a drift in Nabbs Wood. Sadly a swollen stream near the entrance burst its banks.

A torrent of water poured into the drift and 26 children aged between 7 and 17 were drowned in seconds.

The children were buried on 7th July 1838. The girls in three graves and the boys in four graves.

Girls   Boys
Name  Age    Name  Age 
Catherine Garnet  8    James Burkinshaw  7 
Sarah Jukes  8    John Gothard  8 
Sarah Newton  8    George Lamb  8 
Annie Moss  9    William Walmsley  8 
Mary Sellars  10    Amos Wright  8 
Elizabeth Clarkson  11    George Barnett  9 
Elizabeth Carr  13    Eli Hutchinson  9 
Hannah Webster  13    John Simpson  9 
Elizabeth Hollin  15    George Burkinshaw  10 
Ellen Parker  15    Samuel Horne  10 
Hannah Taylor  17    James Turton  10 
        William Allick  12 
        Isaac Wright  12 
        Francis Hoyland  13 
        James Clarkson  16 


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