Image: Overturned coal skips at Normanton 1929. Norman John Boughen was driving the engine which pulls the skips and they capsized, pinning him underneath. Posted by Kay Trevis in Rosewood History Facebook group. The crash was nearby Jim Boughen’s family home and on the right is Florence, Florrie, Merv and Dave, all checking out the damage.
‘Records have shown that 186 men and boys have lost their lives in the Ipswich Rosewood Coal Mines since official records commenced, in 1882, to current times. This number alone makes the Ipswich Rosewood Region significant as it holds the highest record of fatalities than any other coalfield in Queensland.’
Source: Mine Safety Institute of Australia. (2015). Ipswich Miners Memorial in Mine Accidents and Disasters. 4 December.
The worst single year on record was 1972, the year of the Box Flat Disaster. Many men from Rosewood were working there at the time and knew those who lost their lives. Some moved over to work at the Ipswich Railway Workshops after that accident.
But it was not always the miners who were in danger. Here is the sad story of a child who lost his life.
QLD TIMES – 25TH MAY 1953
BOY KILLED
RODE OLD WAGON DOWN MINE TUNNEL
Rosewood May 24 – Trevor Alan Williams, eight-year-old son of Mr and Mrs George Williams, William Street Rosewood, was fatally injured at Rosemount Colliery on Saturday afternoon. In the company of his two younger sisters, he left his father, who was at the mine, and commenced to play with some old wagons at the pit-head. It is believed that the child rode a wagon down the tunnel for about 90 yards. The other two children returned to their father to tell him that the boy had entered the shaft. Mr Williams quickly returned and went down the tunnel to find his son lying near the over-turned wagon. Rosewood Ambulance bearers transported the injured child to the Ipswich General Hospital where he died about 4.50pm. As a result of his plunge down the mine, the boy received a depressed fracture of the skull and a compound fracture of the left arm.
Boy killed RODE OLD WAGGON DOWN MINE TUNNEL – Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld.: 1909 -1954) – 25 May 1953. Trove. (n.d.).
This article in – QLD TIMES – 23rd September 1953 titled INQUEST ADJOURNED, BOYS DEATH AT MINE can be read online to see what happened next.
INQUEST ADJOURNED – BOY’S DEATH AT MINE – Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld.: 1909 – 1954) – 23 Sep 1953. Trove. (n.d.-b).
Other mining accidents in the Rosewood area
MAN KILLED AT WALLOON. A fatal accident happened at the Walloon Coal-mine, on Thursday last, to a young man named. Timothy Hayes, a new arrival fell down the shaft.
MAN KILLED AT WALLOON. – Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and general advertiser (Qld.: 1861 – 1908) – 10 oct 1885.
6 August 1920 – William Hardie, aged 20 years, was killed at the Caledonian Colliery, Walloon, as the result of being struck by a falling stone. A large stone slipped from a series of faults and fell on him.
A MINER KILLED. – accident at Walloon. Ipswich, August 6. – The Brisbane Courier (qld. : 1864 – 1933) – 7 Aug 1920.
MINER KILLED. (1920, August 7). Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld. : 1909 – 1954), p. 7 (DAILY.).
13 November 1930 – IPSWICH NEWS – “LIGHT IN CONTACT! WITH PETROL”
Witness’s Opinion of Mine Explosion. Lanefield Fatality.
The explosion which occurred at the Ardath Colliery, Lanefield, near Rosewood on the morning of November. 13, which resulted in the death of William Melville, a miner, was the subject of a mines inquiry to-day.
LIGHT IN CONTACT! WITH PETROL Ipswich, November 13, 1930 Ipswich News Daily Standard (Brisbane, Qld.: 1912-1936) – p. 20.
Normanton Colliery had a couple of accidents with coal skips. In the first one in 1929, Norman John Boughen was driving the engine which pulls the skips and they capsized, pinning him underneath. Norm received serious injuries and his arm never knitted properly leaving him wearing a leather case over his arm (information from post by Kay Trevis in Rosewood History Facebook group.)
The next accident with skips at Normanton proved fatal. Wednesday 28 August 1935, The Labor Daily (Sydney) reported that while attending to skips running between Nithead and the loading bank at Normanton Colliery, Rosewood, John Trewick, senior, one of the proprietors, was run down and killed. Five skips apparently broke away, and Trewick, in attempting to stop them, was thrown underneath.
KILLED BY SKIPS IN COLLIERY – Brisbane, Tuesday. – The Labor Daily (Sydney, NSW: 1924 – 1938) – 28 Aug 1935.
Colliery fatality – attempt to stop runaway skips rosewood, Tuesday. – The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld.: 1933 – 1954) – 28 Aug 1935.
On 7th October 1944, Michael Crane O’Donnell was killed when an accident occurred in a new tunnel.
INQUIRY INTO COLLIERY FATALITY – Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld.: 1909 – 1954) – 5 Dec 1944.
LOWFIELD MINE FATALITY INQUIRY – laws should be tightened – Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld.: 1909 – 1954) – 16 dec 1944.
This accident at Lowfield had a huge impact on Henry Stubbs, one of the men helping at the scene. He told his family that he had swapped jobs that day with Mick O’Donnell and his mother Nurse Stubbs thought that he was the one who was killed. The trauma of that day stayed with him for the rest of his life, always remembering the date of the accident and often talking about his mate Mick. In addition to this incident, in 1972 Henry Stubbs was working at Box Flat, but was not on a shift at the time it blew up. However, once again there were people he knew well in that terrible disaster, including local Rosewood miner Bill Drysdale, along with the father-in-law of a niece, and the neighbour of a son. Henry was one of the many miners who left the industry at that time to end their final working years at the Railway Workshops.
Another accident was remembered by Ted Hawkins (Information from post by Therese Bryce Hawkins in Rosewood History Facebook group.)
Ted worked at Lanefield Colliery from 1938 to 1948, and then to United No.8 from 1948 to 1953, then on to Oakleigh from 1953 to 1964. Ted’s good friend, who was working in a different mine, had a fatal accident, almost at “knock-off” time. His friend was wheeling a wagon of coal out from his workplace to the main line. The poor man came out in front of a pit pony pulling wagons of coal. Nothing could stop what happened. The horse and the coal wagons went over him, killing him instantly. His friend’s name was Herb Embery.
Obituary MR. H. EMBREY – Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld.: 1909 – 1954) – 9 Feb 1952.
Finding in Rosewood Mine Fatality Enquiry – 1952. “MINER KNOCKED DOWN BY HORSE.” Queensland Times (Ipswich Qld.: 1909-1954). 08 Mar 1952.
On June 13, 1952, Albert William Lord was killed by a fall of stone at Neath Colliery.
INQUIRY INTO MINE FATALITY AT ROSEWOOD, 1952. Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld.: 1909-1954). 8 July, p. 7.
A fault running through the stone was thought to have been the cause of the stone falling from the roof. It is believed Lord had been using a pneumatic pick so would not have had a warning of the fall.
MINER KILLED BY FALL OF STONE IN ROSEWOOD PIT. Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld.: 1909-1954), 14 June. P. 2.
Not just Rosewood
Miners from Rosewood travelled further afield to work in mines across Australia. One sad fatality was Joseph Reddan of Rosewood killed in a mining accident in Cobar, NSW. He had survived the Great War but not the dangerous mines.
MINING TRAGEDY. Daily Mercury (Mackay, Qld.: 1906-1954), 10 April, 1940. p. 11.
Local miners who lost their lives in the Rosewood area collieries listed on the Ipswich Rosewood Coalminers Memorial.
Source: Ipswich Rosewood Coalminers remembered (2015). The Courier Mail. 13 September.
Henry Appleton, 17/11/1900, Caledonian
Hermann Albert Argow, 2/05/1922, Caledonian
Charles George Bailey, 26/09/1916, Westvale
William Colin Brennan, 26/05/1939, Caledonian No 3
Wilheln Karl Gotfried Federer, 6/05/1905, Caledonian
Vincent James Hanson, 4/12/1947, Rosewood No 2
William John Hardie, 6/08/1920, Caledonian
Timothy Hayes, 8/10/1885, Walloon
Rodney Elwyn Maddox, 12/06/1990, Oakleigh No 3
Michael Crane O’Donnell, 7/10/1944, Lowfield No 2
William Pattison, 2/05/1922, Caledonian
George Hodgson Towson, 19/01/1904, Caledonian
