Detail 7: General View

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:46:56 -0400

Detail 6: A Rescue Party

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:36:03 -0400

Detail 1: Colliers Watching

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:30:44 -0400

Detail 5: Anxious Wives

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:29:17 -0400

Detail 3: The Pit-head

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:27:01 -0400

Detail 8: The Pathetic Crowd

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:26:45 -0400

Detail 4: Scene at Mouth

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:26:30 -0400

Detail 2: Colliers Children

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:26:14 -0400

The Graphic: "The Price of Coal"

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:25:28 -0400

The story below the photographs reads as follows:

"The grim tragedy of the sea has been quickly followed by a still grimmer tragedy, one of land, for the horrors of a ship on fire aresurely eclipsed by the horrors of a burning mine, where the men are entombed in the very bowels of the earth, with flames and suffocating smoke and the deadly after-damp cutting them of from rescue. The Universal Colliery, Senghenydd, Glamorganshire, was the scene of the disaster, which happened on Tuesday morning, when 923 men were at work in the mine. At eight o'clock there was a terrible explosion in the Lancaster Pit, the whole gear at the pit-head being blown to atoms, and immediately afterwards one-half of the mine was a mass of flames. Rescue parties speedily descended the adjoining York Pit, and it was discovered that while the men in this part of the mine--some 500 in number--were safe, over 400 miners were imprisoned behind a wall of fire, with their supply of good air cut off. For many hours no progress was made, but presently one man was found alive, and at intervals throughout the night an occasional rescue was effected until the total came to eighteen, while ninety nine were brought up on Wednesday. Little hope was held out of saving more, and if all the imprisoned men have perished the disaster will have been the greatest that has ever occurred in a British mine."

'The Graphic' | Senghenydd: A History in Photographs