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Auction: 9024 - The Property of a Gentleman Orders, Decorations and Campaign Medals
Lot: 700

The Highly Emotive Edward Medal for Mines to John Rothery, Who Helped With the Attempted Rescue of Miners Trapped by a Terrible Fire in the Wellington Pit, Whitehaven, 11.5.1910; Of the Original Shift of 143 Miners Only 7 Survived Edward Medal (Mines), E.VII.R., bronze (John Rothery), good very fine, mounted as originally worn Estimate £ 700-900 E.M. London Gazette 22.7.1910 Two John Rothery´´s were awarded the Edward Medal (Mines) in bronze for the part that they played in the rescue parties collected in response to a fire that broke out in the Wellington Colliery, Whitehaven, Cumberland, 11.5.1910. Both men, possibly related, were employed by the Bigrigg Mining Company and came from the neighbouring William Pit to help. At the latter Pit one was employed as the Under-Manager whilst the other was an Overman. The Wellington Pit Mine Disaster was to attract the highest number of Edward Medals for Mines to be awarded for one incident, with two First Class (to James Littlewood and John Henry Thorne, for whom it was a Second Award Bar) and sixty-four Second Class medals awarded. The other recipients were made up from the Wellington Colliery itself and from others including the Ladysmith, Moresby, Lowca and William Collieries. The general citation is as follows: ´´On the 11th May, 1910, a terrible fire ocurred in the Wellington Pit, Whitehaven, at a point about 4,500 yards from the shafts. Various rescue parties, with great courage and self-devotion and at considerable risk, descended the mine and endeavoured to extinguish the fire and penetrate to the persons in the workings beyond the same. Thorne and Littlewood, fitted with breathing apparatus, reached within a distance of 150 yards of the fire, but were driven back by the great heat and effusion of gases. The others got to within about 300 yards of the fire, working in the smoke backing from the fire. It was found impossible to penetrate to the scene of the fire or to rescue any of the entombed miners. Had an explosion occurred - a by no means unlikely eventuality, seeing that the mine is a very gassy one - they would undoubtedly all have been killed. Special gallantry was shown by John Henry Thorne, to whom the Edward Medal of the First Class has already been awarded, and by James Littlewood.´´ An entire shift of 143 men and boys had entered the Wellington Pit the previous evening, as a result of the fire 136 lives were lost with many families suffering more than one family member lost. The McAllister family lost 7 members to the fire.

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