Remembering the Llanerch Colliery Disaster 6th February 1890

This poem was written by S Jefferson and was printed in the Weekly Mail  on 15th February 1890

Llanerch Pit Disaster

Twas about the time of sunrise

One bright February day

Down the pit three hundred miners

Made their customary way.

 Merry jests and happy laughter

Rose upon the morning air

In the cage, the shaft descending

Young lads went, devoid of care.

Underground the hardy workers

Stripped then to their arduous toil

Far more wearying their labours

Than to plough or delve the soil.

Then Llanerch pits at Abersychan

Soon beheld disaster dire

Far away deep in the workings

Burst the sudden fatal fire.

Up the shaft the red flames rushing

Smashed the gearing and the stays

Whilst the sun, then slowly rising

Paled before their angry blaze.

Rolling smoke clouds, sombre, ebony

Darkened the fair sky of morn

And the men upon the pit bank

Thought of friends from life swift torn.

Then in many a miner's cottage

Was the dread explosion heard

Like an earthquake came the tidings

"Some disaster hath occurred"

Miners wives, pallid and trembling

Sped swiftly oer the fields that morn

Well they knew, while terror led there

Many would return forlorn.

Wives and children round the pit head

Gathered in a mournful crowd

Some in anxious grief were silent

Others wildly sobbed aloud.

Soon a sturdy band of heroes

Humble miners, bravely dared

Deadly choke damp might oppose them

They would see how comrades fared.

They would rescue the survivors

Bring them to the upper air

Gladden hearts now filled with sorrow.

Dauntless they will danger share.

Groping mid the gloomy wreckage

Of the passages below

Horrent sight of dead and wounded

Meet them as they onward go.

Naked bodies, burnt and mangled

Shock them as they sadly grope

Brother toilers, killed whilst toiling

On they pass with scarce a hope.

Crowned is their quest for, ere, the night

Snatched from death to light and life

Near half on who that morn descended

Are restored to child and wife.

O ye who scarce know aught of labour

Seated round your household fire

Think of those now filled with sorrow

Brought by this disaster dire!

Let your pity bear a fruitage

Aid the widow and the child

'Reft of all support and comfort

That your fire grate might be piled.

S Jefferson.  February 7th 1890

An engraving from the Graphic newspaper 15th February 1890