b. 15/12/1879 Stanley, County Durham. d. 2nd Quarter 1965 Durham.
DATE OF EM ACTION: 29/09/1930 Hedley Pit, South Moor, County Durham.
Very little is known about Thomas Buckley, other than he was born in Stanley, County Durham on 15th December 1879. He was Deputy Overman based at the Hedley Pit, South Moor, and married Margaret, and had a daughter Audrey. Nothing else is known about his life except that he died in 1965, aged 85.
EM CITATION:
On the 29th September, 1930, a fall of roof occurred dn the Hedley Pit, South Moor, County Durham, partially burying a hewer, Frederick Beaumont. A chargeman, Victor King, was the first to come to the rescue. He found that a small passage-way remained open by which the buried man might be reached and, with the assistance of his son Richard and John George Tarn, be immediately built two chocks of timber to keep it open. The passage was seven yards long and about two feet square and the only practicable method of rescue was for three men to crawl along the passage-way and lie full length, two in the passage-way and one over Beaumont’s body, and pass back, one at a time, the stones that were pinning him down. This perilous and arduous work was carried on for nine hours by a team of miners (including Victor King) working in relays under the direction of the manager (Walter Robert Scott) and the under-manager (Robert Reed) until at last Beaumont was released, shaken but otherwise uninjured. During the whole nine hours the roof was shifting and ” trickling ” and on four occasions Beaumont was almost freed when another fall buried him again. At one time the danger of a further fall appeared so great that the manager telephoned for a doctor (Dr. Charles James Brookfield Fox) to come to the pit to amputate Beaumont’s leg and so expedite his release. Fortunately as it turned out the doctor found it impossible to amputate in the restricted area in which Beaumont was confined, but he remained on the scene until Beaumont was rescued and examined and treated him before sending him to the surface. Shortly after Beaumont was extricated the whole of the tunnel collapsed.
BURIAL LOCATION: UNKNOWN.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: UNKNOWN.
