From Cliff’s notes ~ Ian.
There was a large winch to haul skips of coal up the long underground drive — the tunnel that led to the coal face. A heavy, endless wire rope was used, which at the top and bottom of the drive wound around a large steel wheel. The top wheel was attached to a trolley that ran along a short length of tramline. The back of this trolley had a heavy steel rope attached to it, which led to a counterbalancing arrangement designed to keep a continuous strain of several tons on the hauling rope.
Two boys decided to play there one day, and ride on the wheel.
“Whether the winch was going at the time I don’t know, but young Edwin was sitting on it when it started turning and he lost both his legs. It is horrifying to visualise that wire rope amputating them. Years later I remember watching Edwin sitting on a trolley, pushing himself along with his hands on his way to school. He was a really tough little fellow.”
§
Perhaps the worst tragedy in Hikurangi occurred in the Ackers Mine, which was on the far side of the hill from the main road.
As Joe Isherwood wrote, this was one of the longer-lived of the small mines. The Ackers family who opened and developed it included four sons and two daughters. They’d arrived in New Zealand in the early 1920s from Westleigh in Lancashire.
There were two seams of coal in the mine. The Ackers father and sons were working the lower seam, the upper having been extracted twenty years earlier. The upper workings had collapsed and closed up fairly solidly, but were still capable of giving off accumulated Black Damp, a mixture of gases that, while not explosive, is heavier than air and settles to the floor without adequate ventilation.
A 40 foot vertical timbered shaft had been sunk through the upper seam down to the lower seam to provide air ventilation. This shaft was about four feet square, and it was the scene of the tragedy.
On the day the fatalities occurred atmospheric pressure had been low, causing an accumulation of Black Damp at the bottom of the shaft. Two of the sons, Albert (18 years old) and James (25) had been sent to the top of the shaft to listen to a knock from down below. This was to judge how far their father and older brother, Bob, both working underground, were from breaking through to the air shaft. This would be necessary to ventilate the area they’d be working, and to allow further development of the mine. There was no ladder in the shaft at the stage, and the only way up or down was by a hemp rope. Jim and Albert must’ve decided that one of them should go down the shaft so they could hear the knocking better.
One of them went down and was overcome by the Black Damp, and the other brother, not realising the danger, slid down the rope after him and also collapsed. A bystander witnessed this and rushed to the Drive entrance, where Jack Ackers (21) and Joe Isherwood were having lunch. Bill, the father, and Bob the older son were still in the mine, but Jack and Joe rushed to the top of the shaft. Jack was a little ahead of Joe, saw his brothers lying at the bottom of the shaft, and he too slid down the rope and was overcome. Joe realised what had happened and knew there was no chance of a rescue until the Black Damp could be cleared. By that time the three brothers had all suffocated.
The mine continued for a few more years, another six or seven more miners were employed, and Mr Ackers acquired the Shetland pony that Cliff remembered. He climbed to the airshaft twice, lowered his miners’ lamp down and saw it go out, just as if it had been lowered into water. Albert, Jack and James had drowned.
§
Cliff’s sister married into the Ackers family. A happier and more engaging couple than Bob and Evelyn it’s hard to imagine. They helped to set up and manage the Hikurangi Museum for many years.