Burntwood Family History Group

At 09.18 on 1st October 1930, the most well known accident to have happened at a colliery in our vicinity, occurred at ‘The Grove Colliery’, on Wyrley Common, Brownhills, owned by William Harrison’s Brownhills Collieries Company, which was opened in 1857. A huge gas explosion took place one and a half miles below the surface in the underground workings, beneath the “Fleur De Lys” public house, when it is thought that a naked light was struck in a shaft.

“Fleur De Lys”

The fourteen men killed were:-

BOWDEN, Alfred 49

BROWNRIDGE, John 34

CORBETT, Benjamin 52

HACKET, John 33

HEATH, Alfred 27

HOLLAND, John (Jack) 41

HOWDLE, David Richard 30

MALLEY, James 33

MARTIN, Alec 32

ROBINS, William 45

SCOFFHAM, John 50

SMITH, Harry 38

WHITTAKER, John Bernard 44

WHITTAKER, William 62

The funeral cortege passing the Council Offices as they were at the time

(Cannock Chase Mining Society)

All fourteen men were buried together on the 7th October in a collective grave at Saint James’ Church Cemetery, Church Road, Brownhills. The cortege started at the Council Offices and made its way along High Street into Church Road and into the church. Many people lined the streets to pay their respects.

The men were laid to rest in Great Charles Street Graveyard in a communal grave divided into ten sections. They were afforded full military honours, as six of the men had fought in the First World War.

The multiple grave (Cannock Chase Mining Society)

	The multiple headstones (Chasewater Stuff’s railway Blog)
At 10.00 on Saturday 2^nd October 2010 at Saint James’ Church, an 80th anniversary memorial service took place for the those miners who lost their lives in the ‘The Grove Colliery’ disaster, their descendants and their friends. A full report on the accident and subsequent enquiry, sourced from the Coal Mining History Resource Centre

If you have any further information about 'The Grove Colliery' disaster, please send it to us at enquiries@bfhg.org.uk

If you have an article or photograph that you want including in our gallery, please send it to us at enquiries@bfhg.org.uk

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