1879: Solemn Lessons at Kaitangata

February 21, 2022

By AHNZ

Today in New Zealand history, at c.9am on 21 February, 1879, our first large-scale industrial disaster occurred at Kaitangata coal mine in Otago. Some 24 women were made widows and 88 children lost their fathers. The death toll was 35 men and boys who lost everything. Most of the men had not been killed by the underground explosion but by suffocating while attempting to exit the mine. Kaitangata mine was established in 1858 but really got going in 1862.

We had welfare and charity and body recovery back then but it was not run by The State. Perhaps that is why the Kaitangata Relief Fund was so successful at raising money from sympathetic New Zealanders from all over the country.

Unlike similar disasters today most of the bodies were located and recovered before nightfall the same day and the rest on the following day. A morgue was set up at Jenkin’s hotel with the Police Constable taking charge of the bodies as they emerged. After the minimum required administrative reckoning was taken for identification purposes the families were admitted to the morgue to settle accounts with their own grief. This is reported as having been an emotionally overpowering scene yet in my opinion more natural and healthy than the suppression, repression, and thwarted closure demanded of, for example, the Pike River families in 2010.

“Usual historical procedure would now involve miners rescuing and recovering any dead and it was assumed this would now occur. However, workmates and family were told to be quiet and wait. ..Something about this time in our history caused all concerned to restrain their natural desire to mourn or even save lives in favor of privileging the check boxes of bureaucrat’s clipboards.” – 2010: Pike River Mine Disaster, AHNZ

“…by 9pm 28 bodies had been recovered and four more had been seen…No bodies were found where then men had been working..were not blackened or burnt, which suggested that fire-damp had exploded and that the coal cutters had had time to flee..and sufficated.”

“So soon as the official identification was concluded, the doors were opened and the wives, children and relative were permitted to enter the rooms. There was the indiscriminate search for the particular body or bodies wanted by each…The scene was quite appalling and overpowering for the strongest nerve and most callous heart. It was too much for human nature, sufficient even to dethrone reason. Measures were taken, however, to prevent its long continuance. The poor people were got persuaded to leave the room..” – unknown newspaper clipping; The Unauthorised History of Kaitangata & South Otago, Facebook (2021)

“At a meeting of subscribers to the Kaitangata Relief Fund held on Wednesday night, the report stated the total amount collected to be £15,000. It was decided to vest the capital in five trustees, who were appointed. ” – Poverty Bay Herald, June 1879; Papers Past

A cause of the explosion was the belief by the Deputy Manager and others that carburetted hydrogen, ‘fire damp’, did not exist in New Zealand mines. This manager walked the mines with a naked light (flame?) but was shown by nature the error of this belief. Learning hard, solemn, lessons like this one is how Thomas Bracken choose to process the disaster in verse. The poet who wrote our anthem God Defend New Zealand (1876) and coined for us the byline God’s Own Country also wrote a poem named Kaitangata: “Afflictions are but solemn lessons read to mortals; Science still is in her youth- The living gain their knowledge through the dead: All human suff’ring points the road ahead…widows’ and orphans’ eyes are following from this life to the next. Loved spirits torn away from dearest ties, and God to us is speaking through their cries.”¹

I don’t know much more than these 3 poems when it comes to Bracken. He seems determined to make God our teacher, defender, and landlord based on these poems. The man had a theme!

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1 Kaitangata, Bracken; NZ’s Heritage (1971)

Image ref. An Explosion Of Firedamp In A Coal is a drawing by Mary Evans Picture Library, Fine Art America

Ref. p48 Strange Facts & True About New Zealand, Patricia Chapman (1982)

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