1989 Lancaster Hole death

[mikem]

It's certainly not mentioned in John Forder's 2001 list of fatalities in the Dales (1936-2000) - which was compiled much closer to the time.

However, the April 1988 Unnamed Cave (in wikipedia) is said to be at Stone Rigg (in above list) - the only cave in that locality seeming to have a sump is Lower Stone Rigg Cave, although the guidebook doesn't say when it was discovered.

Also, in Life and Death Underground, Lovelock ascribes 11 deaths to Alderley Edge (whih would be before the latest one in Wikipedia), & would take it ahead of Porth yr Ogof...

 

[langcliffe]

However, the April 1988 Unnamed Cave (in wikipedia) is said to be at Stone Rigg (in above list) - the only cave in that locality seeming to have a sump is Lower Stone Rigg Cave.

Maybe - but I have to go by the reference.

Also, in Life and Death Underground, Lovelock ascribes 11 deaths to Alderley Edge (whih would be before the latest one in Wikipedia), & would take it ahead of Porth yr Ogof...

Alderley Edge is a problem, and we may well be missing some.  I can also find no direct evidence of Raymond Brown's death in 1946. However, there was a chap called Raymond Taylor who fell down a 50' shaft and was badly injured (but appears to have survived), and the newspaper report does mention a schoolboy  fatality earlier in the year, so that could be it.

I have searched the newspaper resources I have available to me pretty comprehensively.

 

[Jenny P]

Also, in Life and Death Underground, Lovelock ascribes 11 deaths to Alderley Edge (whih would be before the latest one in Wikipedia), & would take it ahead of Porth yr Ogof...

There was a death in Alderley Edge involving a party from Whitehall Outdoor Pursuits Centre but I can't remember which year or which of the mines as there are several open for visits: Wood Mine or West Mine come to mind but I may be wrong.  One of the lads in a Whitehall group somehow fell behind the rest of the group, fell into a flooded stope and drowned.

It caused a huge fuss in Derbyshire because it was within months of another Whitehall party having a fatal accident in Alum Pot when someone fell while life-lined, the instructor life-lining didn't catch him but when the rope stopped running he dropped it, went to the edge to see what was happening and then the rope ran out again as the person rolled off the ledge and fell the rest of the way.  (That was the general gist of the report which came back.)  That will give you the year of the Alderley Edge mine fatality.

The Alderley Edge incident will be in the DCRO records and, because Whitehall was also involved in the Alum Pot one, that may be in the Derbyshire records as well.

 

[Fulk]

With this year's fatality, there have been 10 deaths in the Easegill System; one person had problems at the re-belay on the entrance pitch to Lancaster Hole and fell to his death in 1997.

 

[RichardB1983]

I have several newspaper cuttings for Alderley Edge incidents;

The 1909 incident was Alec Rae, rather than Reay

The 1946 incident I know about was Arthur Wrigley Murray, aged 16. He fell down Plank Shaft in West Mine trying to rescue his friend who also had fallen down it but survived. There's an article in the British Newspaper Archive from the Manchester Evening News on 18th March 1946 entitled "Youth dies trying to save friend".

Not sure where Raymond Brown comes from, but perhaps there was a 2nd incident that year? I could head to Wilmslow library to see if there's anything in the Alderley & Wilmslow Advertiser that year? Having said that, the 1954 report of Kenneth Booth's fatal accident mentions that it was the 3rd boy victim since the war - which would imply that there was only 1 in 1946, 1948 & 1954. All three it seems were at Plank Shaft in West Mine.

The Whitehall Outdoor Pursuits incident was in Wood Mine in 1973 and is in the Wikipedia article already.

 

[mikem]

The 1946 death was Kenneth Brown, so again a mixing of names seems likely. Raymond Taylor did survive, see p.2-3:
https://www.derbyscc.org.uk/dccinfo/newsletters/n201106int.pdf

Jean Rigby also appears to have survived a 90ft fall ("LEADING three friends through a pitch-black disused copper mine at Alderley Edge, Jean Rigby, aged 17, shorthand - typist, Wilbraham Road, Fallowfield,")
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-QG1BQAAQBAJ&pg=PA351&lpg=PA351&dq=%22jean+rigby%22+%22alderley+edge%22&source=bl&ots=Ecd12UQm-a&sig=ACfU3U3tNnlskkSrhfDtBJR_cHOZ-AK_bA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj54c6-oZXnAhXPQ0EAHcOHDOYQ6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22jean%20rigby%22%20%22alderley%20edge%22&f=false

The Alderley Edge wikipedia page gives much the same info as yours, but does have a few extra details, so maybe the others weren't fatal.

 

[mikem]

Kenneth Brown in mentioned in the Derbyshire CC article - but Arthur Murray in 1946 newspaper...

The chairman of the Mining Company fell down a shaft there in 1862 (so wouldn't qualify for the list):
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/search/results?basicsearch=alderley%20edge%20mitchell%20death&retrievecountrycounts=false

The 1946 article that Richard mentions (I don't currently subscribe, so can't read it):
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/search/results?basicsearch=youth%20dies%20trying%20to%20save%20friend&retrievecountrycounts=false

 

[langcliffe]

I have several newspaper cuttings for Alderley Edge incidents;

The 1909 incident was Alec Rae, rather than Reay

The 1946 incident I know about was Arthur Wrigley Murray, aged 16. He fell down Plank Shaft in West Mine trying to rescue his friend who also had fallen down it but survived. There's an article in the British Newspaper Archive from the Manchester Evening News on 18th March 1946 entitled "Youth dies trying to save friend".

Not sure where Raymond Brown comes from, but perhaps there was a 2nd incident that year? I could head to Wilmslow library to see if there's anything in the Alderley & Wilmslow Advertiser that year? Having said that, the 1954 report of Kenneth Booth's fatal accident mentions that it was the 3rd boy victim since the war - which would imply that there was only 1 in 1946, 1948 & 1954. All three it seems were at Plank Shaft in West Mine.

The Whitehall Outdoor Pursuits incident was in Wood Mine in 1973 and is in the Wikipedia article already.

What a useful response!

You're absolutely right about the misspelling of ""Reay" My three  newspaper articles say "Rea" and that is confirmed by the birth and death registers. I'll correct it on Wikipedia.

The Arthur Wrigley Murray incident sounds like the one we want, and I have tracked it down. I suspect that the Raymond Brown one is spurious (the only reference to it is in the Descent list).

Thank you!

 

[mikem]

So Kenneth Brown also appears to have been a misnomer?

You've still got the accident down as June, but the newspaper was written in March...

CPC timeline 1940: "Seven youths became lost in the Alderley Edge Mines and the search to find them took 24 hours."

 

[RichardB1983]

So Kenneth Brown also appears to have been a misnomer?

You've still got the accident down as June, but the newspaper was written in March...

CPC timeline 1940: "Seven youths became lost in the Alderley Edge Mines and the search to find them took 24 hours."

It's possible there is a 2nd incident that year perhaps. If I get a minute I might go to the library and have a look through the local newspaper archives.

There are loads of reports of non-fatal accidents too. I think the most bizarre is a 1960 court hearing reporting that a fight had broken out between two lads in West Mine - and one of them was struck with a knife (not sure if that means 'stabbed')?

 

[mikem]

Sounds like it may have been a swipe rather than a stab...

...by 1919 the mines were once again abandoned. This heralded a darker era in the history of the mines and one that I must confess to having played a minor (not miner) role in, the problem of trespass. In 1929 two young Stockport men had wandered into West Mine and had become lost in the labyrinth of passageways, their torches eventually giving up, unable in the dark to find a way out. Their emaciated bodies were found in a side passageway three months later. Public concern at the fatalities did little to deter persistent trespassers. Between 1934 and 1937, forty-one people were fined by Wilmslow magistrates for offences of trespass in the mines[v]. In 1946 a man fell sixty-five feet to his death in ?Plank Shaft?, again in West Mine, but the mine was not filled-in and fully sealed until 1960, the year The Weirdstone of Brisingamen was published.

?The widest shaft they had yet come upon lay before them, and stretched across its gaping mouth was a narrow plank.?[vi]

The ancient mines of Alderley claimed their last victim in 1974 when a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl fell thirty feet into Engine Vein, prompting the capping of the open cast shaft with concrete[vii].

https://www.shutlingsloe.co.uk/category/cheshire/

[v]Carlon, Chris, J. The Alderley Edge Mines, John Sherratt and Son Ltd, 1979,  pg122

[vi]Alan Garner, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, William Collins Sons & Company Ltd 1960, pg127

[vii]Carlon, Chris, J. The Alderley Edge Mines, Op. cit. pg124

 

[mikem]

People were still falling down shafts there in 2010, although fortunately they survived - however, the Perranporth incident the same year should probably join the list, as she entered an adit, then fell. (Some interesting pictures of other entrances on pages before the incidents - I recognise some of them even though locations not identified):
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MT4RBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA23&dq=perranporth+accident&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi60KjczpXnAhX9TBUIHbveAqAQ6AEILzAB#v=onepage&q=perranporth%20accident&f=false

Details of the 1862 mining accident: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=MINING-HISTORY;87a3772f.1409

Some good pics of Wood Mine: https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/wood-mine-alderley-edge-may-13.80903/

& an article with maps: http://www.yrc.org.uk/yrcweb/index.php/journal-downloads/category/17-s12-2?download=11:12-19

Pages 34-44 from 1962/63 include one that's missing from wikipedia, although it was Longwood not Eastwater (Heather Muirhead - confirmed by History of Mendip Cave Rescues):
http://www.oucc.org.uk/procs/proc03/OUCC_proceedings_3_complete.pdf

Having had a quick scan of Alan Gray's list, it appears to be the only Mendip one missing, although some of the earlier incidents might qualify (Pen Park, Elm Cave & Plumley's Hole)

 

[Badlad]

mikem - you are an encyclopedia 

 

[RichardB1983]

Also, in Life and Death Underground, Lovelock ascribes 11 deaths to Alderley Edge (whih would be before the latest one in Wikipedia), & would take it ahead of Porth yr Ogof...

There was a death in Alderley Edge involving a party from Whitehall Outdoor Pursuits Centre but I can't remember which year or which of the mines as there are several open for visits: Wood Mine or West Mine come to mind but I may be wrong.  One of the lads in a Whitehall group somehow fell behind the rest of the group, fell into a flooded stope and drowned.

It caused a huge fuss in Derbyshire because it was within months of another Whitehall party having a fatal accident in Alum Pot when someone fell while life-lined, the instructor life-lining didn't catch him but when the rope stopped running he dropped it, went to the edge to see what was happening and then the rope ran out again as the person rolled off the ledge and fell the rest of the way.  (That was the general gist of the report which came back.)  That will give you the year of the Alderley Edge mine fatality.

The Alderley Edge incident will be in the DCRO records and, because Whitehall was also involved in the Alum Pot one, that may be in the Derbyshire records as well.

It's already in the Wikipedia article, but the 1967 incident in Carlswark Cavern - where 14-year-old Robert Fraser MacDonald drowned
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002135/19670202/887/0031
It was stated that they were on a Whitehall Pursuit course at the time.

The only other reference I can find to Whitehall is in relation to the Alderley one - couldn't find mention of Alum Pot in the British Newspaper Archive in 1973 - but they only have certain newspapers - and the OCR they have used to transcribe them sometimes produces garbage that is difficult to search on.

 

[mikem]

The Alum Pot incident was 1967 (only two weeks before Carlswark):
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=prBJDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA402&dq=white+hall+alum+pot&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi09bXC95bnAhWTiVwKHax0A68Q6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=white%20hall%20alum%20pot&f=false