Florence Colliery
A 1911 disaster in the Florence Colliery is an example of why Nova Scotia’s mining and quarrying industry is so safety-focussed today. The industry has reduced its injury rate by 90% since 1997. We believe the most important thing to come out of a mine is the miner, and our modern safety record reflects this.
The coal mine was called the Sydney No. 3 when it opened in 1902, but its name was changed to the Florence Colliery in 1915. It closed in 1961, and a reclamation mining project, in which extraction is completed and reclamation is done, later reclaimed the site from about 2006-2011.
In the early hours of January 3, 1911, there were only 14 people in the mine. Throughout its life, the mine operated mainly with just one shift, so anyone in it during the wee hours was not actually mining but doing work to prepare for the arrival of the several hundred men who worked during the day.
The mine’s deputy managers were doing their daily inspections to ensure the mine was safe. For example, they were checking that the ventilation system was working properly and that there were no dangerous accumulations of methane gas. Also, various workmen, including a group of six, of whom five were Newfoundlanders, were preparing for mining to begin.
About 3:45 a.m., an explosion occurred. Despite the violence of the explosion, several men in the mine were unaware it had happened and to some in the surrounding community, it just felt like a routine blast, part of the mining process.
Once it was understood that something serious had happened, senior mine officials started entering the mine at 4:30 a.m. to investigate. By around 6:00 a.m., the mine’s superintendent, company doctors and about 200 men were gathered to begin rescue operations. However, according to the Nova Scotia Department of Mines report for that year, “at the first glance at the condition that existed below No. 11 landing, we knew that these men who were working on the deep and the two deputies were beyond any human aid.”
The mine’s ventilation system was restored and three shifts of 100 miners each were organized to search for the dead and start cleaning up.
As they worked their way through the mine, the force of the explosion became apparent. It had destroyed a total of 77 brick and 60 wooden stoppings (walls built to control the flow of air in the mine). All the props (ceiling supports) were also destroyed for a distance of 2250 feet. The annual report said, “Coal boxes were smashed into kindling wood, rails and air pipes twisted as so much fine wire. 38 rooms and levels [tunnels] were lost.”
The Halifax Herald reported that the Department of Mines’ deputy inspector, Neil A. Nicholson, said “he had never seen such a tangled mass of ruins in a colliery and by the appearance of the inspector, when he emerged from the colliery, it looked as if he had been in the fight himself.”
Hundreds of people gathered at the mine in drizzling rain to wait for news.
About 2:30 p.m. on the afternoon of the explosion, the bodies of the group of six workmen were found, burned beyond recognition. The men were Eugene Reed, James Messervey, Arthur Amey, Brian Murphy, John Wade (Mahoney) and Israel Parsons.
(The January 4 edition of the Evening Mail had all six names wrong even though it listed ages, marital status and whether each had children. The names the newspaper printed were likely, through a terrible mistake, of other miners who were not harmed by the explosion.)
The explosion had caused a rock fall that trapped the men. While two of the group of six had head injuries that suggested they had been killed by falling rock, the others were suffocated by after damp (carbon monoxide caused by the explosion).
The company arranged for the Newfoundlanders to be put on the steamship Bruce and taken back to their home province. A large crowd followed as their remains were taken to the wharf.
The damage in the mine was such that it took several days to find deputies Harry Purchase and Archie Ferguson. The location of the group of six was known because they had been assigned specific tasks, but Purchase and Ferguson were inspecting large areas of the mine, so there was no way to know where exactly they were at the time of the explosion.
On January 5 at 2:30 p.m., the body of Harry Purchase was found, in a sitting position, with arms folded across his chest. As the January 6 edition of the Evening Mail put it, “He had evidently been suffocated by after damp. His attitude indicated that he had resigned himself to death when he found there was no escape.” Purchase reportedly left behind a widow and three children.
It was not until January 8, five days after the explosion, at 3:45 p.m. that the body of Archie Ferguson was found, badly burned. The annual report said, “This ended our search, and the open lamp explained the cause of the explosion.”
Safety lamps were used to test for accumulations of gas in coal mines. The lamps contained a wick sitting in oil, which provided a small flame, about the size of a birthday candle’s flame. The flame was surrounded by two steel mesh cylinders, which allowed methane gas to reach the flame but prevented heat from the flame reaching the main body of gas and igniting it.
Safety lamps were moved into places where gas was suspected of accumulating. If the lamp’s flame brightened, it indicated that gas was present. Steps would then be taken to remove the gas using, for example, fans to disperse it or redirecting air flow into the area with the gas pocket.
The deputies carried safety lamps with them as they inspected the mine each morning.
The fact that Ferguson’s safety lamp was found near by his body, unlocked, suggested that the flame in his lamp had somehow gone out, perhaps because he dropped the lamp or knocked it against something. The flame could also be put out by encountering a significant pocket of methane gas. Because methane contains no oxygen, it can surround a lamp and extinguish its flame.
Ferguson had apparently felt his way out of the dark room where his lamp went out and retreated into a tunnel to relight it, assuming that there was no gas in the tunnel.
The keys to unlock safety lamps were supposed to stay in the lamp cabin and not be taken into the mine. However, miners sometimes took the keys with them anyway, especially if they were travelling alone, far from their colleagues, as Ferguson was doing. This allowed them to unlock the lamp and relight the wick if they believed there were in a safe location.
This was against regulations and a serious risk – they were locked at surface to prevent miners doing exactly what Ferguson did. However, Ferguson’s only other option was to sit in complete darkness for hours until his colleagues figured out that he had not completed his rounds and sent a search party looking for him. Since his location was not known, it would be a long wait.
So, Ferguson unlocked his lamp, struck a match and triggered the explosion.
While Ferguson caused the disaster, such an experienced miner would only have tried to relight his lamp if he believed there was no gas around him.
In fact, deputy inspector Nicholson later wrote in the annual report that “I always considered this mine to be one of the safest in my district. Gas has only been reported twice in that section during the year 1910.” Testimony at the inquiry also confirmed that the area Ferguson was found in was not considered gassy. So, he had good reason to think he was in a safe space for relighting his lamp.
Ferguson left a widow and either six or eight children, according to differing newspaper articles.
As was so often the case with disasters, the explosion was likely not caused by just one factor or decision. Former Cape Breton coal miner Rennie MacKenzie argued in his book, “Blast!,” that the mine’s ventilation system also played a role.
The mine was shut down three days before the disaster for New Year’s festivities. As a result, there was no inspection of the mine’s ventilation system on January 1.
Also, the ventilation system was reversed on December 31 to melt ice near the opening of the mine’s main tunnel. Air drawn into a mine is cold in winter, so it can freeze part of the tunnel. By the time that air circulates through the mine and is expelled at the other end of the ventilation system, the air is relatively warm. Reversing the air flow would result in warm air being expelled from the main tunnel, and any ice build-up would be melted, making it safer.
However, reversing the air flow could also have contributed to gas accumulating where Ferguson and others assumed there would be none since the ventilation was designed to flow in the opposite direction.
A total of eight men were killed in the explosion. Had it occurred a few hours later, hundreds would have been in the mine, and the death toll would doubtless have been much worse.
Even as the community mourned, the company was working to get the mine back into production within a few days. “Large gangs of men are working unceasingly clearing away the debris and installing the displaced machinery,” according to the Evening Mail.
The living had to carry on.
Florence Colliery at the time of reclamation.
Image showing the underground workings - the white lines are rooms and tunnels in the mine. The mine was mostly under the ocean floor so this shows only a small part of it.
Florence Colliery in 1941. Thanks to the Nova Scotia Archives.
Florence Colliery during reclamation.
