Welsh Country - Issue93 - Mar-Apr 20

STORIES IN STONE
“
What indeed was the price of coal? Disaster, distress and
destitution, for all the local mine workings were ultimately
interconnected and all were flooded, representing a terrible
loss of employment. In moments such as these, lives had
been cruelly ended and other lives changed forever.
”
I have to report that not only have the records of the
inquest been lost, but also I have been unable to find any
reports of any inquest or enquiry in the contemporary press.
Those lost were just ordinary people, barely leaving less than
a thumbprint on history and therefore, perhaps, expendable.
There was no reason for a fuss; these things happen after all.
Mining was a dangerous occupation, everyone knew that.
The manager of the Garden Pit who sent the miners back to
work was exonerated. However, things did not go so well for
the owner Sir Hugh Owen. The loss of the mine provoked
a financial crisis in the Owen family. Ty Mawr, their Big
House at the heart of the estate is still visible, but the land at
Landshipping was eventually sold to the Stanley family.
This was a terrible disaster that had a huge impact on a
small distant community. You will see this when you examine
the details on the memorial stone. It was first erected by
the villagers in 2002 and then in 2019 a new memorial was
rededicated with an updated plaque. It is clear that many of
the dead were related to each other. Some surnames occur
more than once, like Cole and Llewellin. Joseph Picton died
with three of his sons, leaving behind a widow and five other
children. James Davies died with one son, leaving a widow
and five children.
The original memorial listed seven names where the first
was given only as 'Miner'. These are believed to have been
women and children, employed and killed in the pit that day
in spite of the legislation; observance of the law did not seem
to stretch as far as Pembrokeshire. Other names give ages
as low as 9 or 11. In one case a person was listed simply as
‘child’. Research now suggests that this was almost certainly
Joseph Harts. He was four years old.
The Garden Pit disaster was reported right across the
country, from Westmoreland to London, from Cork to Essex,
from Bristol to Dundee, with words like ‘dreadful,’ ‘awful,’
‘terrible,’ destructive,’ ‘fatal,’ ‘melancholy,’ ‘catastrophe.’ But
no one seems to have felt the need to question the illegality of
working practises.
In 1906 the press reported that one of three sisters who
lived in a small cottage in Landshipping, Elizabeth Butland,
had worked in the Garden Pit sixty two years earlier, for
the going rate of 4½d a day. A man was paid 1 shilling.
Two of her brothers, were killed in the disaster, trapped in a
collapsing tunnel beneath a river and you can see their names
on the memorial stone – John, 17 and Thomas, 10. It is such
a humbling detail.
Words and picture 'Garden Pit Memorial' : Geoff Brookes,
'Garden Pit Memorial' inset: Russ Clarke-Wildeman
Illustration: Charlotte Wood
Mar - Apr 2020 9