Wrexham Memories: Wrexham marks 75th anniversary of Gresford Colliery disaster

By Flintshire Chronicle on Sep 24, 09 04:14 PM in 1900-1999

SEPTEMBER 22, 1934, is a date seared on the hearts of the people of Wrexham - the day 266 local men perished in a cataclysmic explosion.

Tuesday marked the 75th anniversary of the town's worst tragedy - the Gresford Colliery disaster.

And it's the last time 89-year-old Albert Rowlands saw his father, John, a decorated hero of the trenches of the First World War.

Albert, one of the last survivors of the Colliery workforce, was a 14-year-old lamp boy, handing out the miner's helmets and lamps to the doomed shift as they went down the mine for the last time.

Only six of them climbed out, away from the raging underground fires that consumed their workmates.

It's also a special day for one Wrexham law firm - Cyril Jones and Co - which represented the miners at the historic disaster inquiry that followed, an inquiry that paved the way for the nationalisation of the mines by the postwar Labour Government.

But for Albert Rowlands it was the last time he ever saw his dad.

Now 89 and still sprightly and with a passion for horse racing, he lives in Troon Close, Borras.

By Albert's reckoning his current address is just above where the Dennis shaft of the Gresford Colliery ran deep underground and where all those miners, including his dad, died tragically.

He said: "Us boys in the lamp room had to be there as soon as the men started arriving.
"We were cycling to work with my dad and he told us to get on or we'd be late so we went on ahead.

"He picked up his lamp at the other window so I never saw him again. Two others of his friends were with us and they were lost as well. They're all still down there."

The picture shows Albert Rowlands reflects at his home in Borras, Wrexham.

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