October 14th in History

The pit disasters were part of the price paid for the industrial strength of the country. They were a high price and not paid by the pit owners or their families. RIP all those who gave their lives underground for the prosperity of others.

(Both my grandfathers were Welsh miners at some point before being damaged by it.)

There were quite a number of disasters in Cornwall's metal-ore mines, too, although with far fewer fatalities. For some reason these seem to attract far less attention than the colliery disasters, perhaps because the death-tolls were lower.



Only for that voyage, intended to go to India, to end in a crash, tragically killing everyone on board, in Northern France.

Ironcially the casualties included the Air Minister in a government that pushed the airship to be built as a State project to rival the similar but fully-commercial R100. The Ministry forced progress and interfered with the design to the point that disaster was almost predictable.

Among it misjudgments was ordering it use existing, British-produced Diesel engines, but these were intended for railway locomotives in which mass is an advantage, so were far heavier than the German, Maybach engines designed for airships.

Luckily the crash did not kill anyone on the ground, but the airship had flown quite low over a farmhouse not long before it grounded on a gentle hill.

The R100 successfully completed quite a number of voyages, but the R101 and the Hindenburg disasters so un-nerved everyone that the R100 was rendered totally unviable, and was broken up for scrap.

Little Richard tried to pull a My Sweet Lord on him,eh