The Flooding of Wheal Owles

This is the transcript of a booklet published in 1893 by or on behalf of W. Herbert Thomas.

Tellee about Wheal Owles, sir—the flooded Cornish mine!
’Ow the waters chuck’d the levels where the sun don’t never shine;
’Ow the twenty men are lyin’—stark, lifeless, lumps of clay,
Where the rushin’ torrent wash’d thum when the rock-wall brawk away.

Tellee about the blastin’, and the frantic climb to “grass”?
Iss, sure. I’ll try to tellee ’ow the whole thing cum to pass;
Tho’ you knaw I aren’t a schollard, cause my school was Wheal Owles bal, (b)
An ’my pen was a three poun’ hammer, an’ my books some stones to spal.

Ef you look across the valley, past the crafts an’ hedges there,
You can see the ’count-house standin’ top the hillside brown an’ bare,
An’ the shaft es by the cliff, sir, where the restless ocean rolls,
An’ under the sea some levels was drove from old Wheal Owles.

Ef you went down at Botallack, or Levant p’r’aps you’ve heard tell
’Ow above your head the boulders would haive with the billows’ swell;
An’ you’d hear them gratin’, runblin’, ’bove the forty-fathom end,
An’ you’d clemb the ladders quicker than you managed to descend.

But I’m mixin’ up my story, as I fear’d I shud ’ave done,
For my head is mizzy maazy fer sence this whistness(d) ’ave begun,
An’ you wudden feel quite fitty(e) ef you met Death faace to faace,
An’ weth roarin’ drownin’ waters you ’ad a fearful chaase’

Aw, sir, I caan't set quiet, fur the gasldy thing do stir
Every drop of blood within me, an’ I’ll tellee plainly, sir,
Tho’ they said my nerve was steady an’ head level through et all,
I dream of a Hell of water, which in thunderin’ floods do fall:

It happen’d a Tuesday mornen, this awful accident,
We were all ave us forenoon core, sir, an’ w’en from home I went
I took my crowst(f) from the missus an’ gov her a parten kiss,
An’ we knaw’d no more than the dead, sir, ’ow things wud ’ave gone amiss.

I wus haaf way down the valley w’en I found I’d come away
Thouse(g) my under-groun’ clothes—for Monday, at St. Just, es washin’ day:
So I started back in a hurry, an’ got to the cottage-door,
An’ said ef I stay’d more’n a minute I’d be late for the forenoon core.

My under-groun’ suit was ready, but my wife looked fine un queer;
An’ I says, “W’y wass the matter!” and says she, “I’ve took a fear,
For you knaw tes allus unlucky to come back when goin’ to work,”
An’ she looked as white as a witch, sir, an’ cold as that blacken’d churk.

It gave me a bit of a twingle, but I laugh’d to aise her mind,
An’ I aren’t so superstitious as some men you may find,
But the fear come back, she told me, as soon as I was gone,
An’ the fearful thing that happen’d was worse than she thought upon.

At the bal we met the cappen—I main Cappen Tom Tregear—
As straight a man as a mother cud ever have an’ rear,
An’ we got our strings ave candles an’ fuse an’ dynamite,
For to blast the ground down under, an’ to have a bit of light.

Then we all clemb’d down the ladders, about forty men, all told,
An’ up through the shaft to daylight we sung, an’ the sound uproll’d,
For we had some brae fine (h) singers from the Bible Christian choir,
An’ we like to tuney below, sir, or around a blacksmith’s fire.

We sung “In the sweet by-an-bye,” sir, ’bout the beautiful golden shore,
Where we hope we shall some day gather, an’ never to part any more;
But we never thought Death was waitin’ to beckon us over the tide,
An’ that mornen haaf ave our number wud cross to the other side!

So we clembed to the lower levels of the damp an’ slimy ground
Where the candles smoked an’ sputtered, an’ the tin an’ copper es found;
An’ we went to the stopes an’ winzes an’ ends where the lode ave ore
Es blasted an’ rulled in the waggons by miners every core.

I’ad shut one hole an’ was usin’ the hammer an’ pickers there,
When a sound like ten thousand thunders broke out through the heated air,
An’ I heard the rush an’ the roarin’, like the burstin’ of a tide,
An’ “Water! The mine is flooded! Run for your lives!” I cried.

My comrades were stunned with the horror, an’ I might ’ave stood there too,
Like a lump of lead or a statue, an’ not knaw’d what to do,
But I well remember’d the floodin’ of the next bal, old Wheal Drea,
When the water of East Boscean broke through an’ wash’d me away.

As quick as a flash of lightnin’ I hurried the men an’ boys
Into the empty waggon; an’, urged on by the noise
Of the roarin’, risin’ water that swamped the works below,
I pushed the load through the level so fast as my legs would go.

One lad fell out of the waggon, down eighteen feet to a plot
But Jim bent down as he clemb’d up, an’ the boy’s hand quickly caught,
An’ hualed(j) him up so aisy, did that fear’d excited man,
As ef but a pound of candles, or awnly a onion stran.

Then on to the shaft we rumbled, while a lad who run’d before
Shriek’d lest the waggon should crush him, as it onward madly tore,
An’ dodgin’ the rocks out-juttin’ by one candle that kept alight
In the rush of the wind, we managed to reach the shaft all right.

Up through the shaft came wailin’ the cries of the drownin’ men,
Strugglin’ in darkness with torrents that roll’d down again an’ again,
Till the gashly an’ helpless bodies sunk down like lifeless stones,
An’ the roar of the hungry water swallowed their dyin’ groans.

By the skin of their teeth some escaped, sir, by climben chains hand over hand,
An’ some, who took the wrong turning, near went to the sperrit land,
Some were haaled up by the winches, an’ some who fell off the way
Were helped again on to the ladders or would not be living to-day.

Down below is a rever of water, a mile an’ half long, for sure,
Through three mines’ deep under-ground workin’s, an’ p’r’aps a good many more,
For a pare(k) of our men was drivin an’ cut into old Wheal Drea,
Where the thousand-tons water was pressin’, an’ burst through Cargodna that day.

A blunder? Ah yes, ’twas a blunder, for our plans shawed solid ground
Where the men at the sixty-five level a hollowed-out place must have found:
You see, sir, they worked for metals in our bals in days of old,
When Solomon decked out es Temple with tin an’ with jewels an’ gold;

So we’re hedged in with scals(l) of dangers, an’ tes little enough we get
To keep body and soul together, but we aren’t the sort to fret
W’en we come up to the sunlight an’ can in our homes abide,
But ’tes hard when homes are waitin’ for bodies beneath the tide.

So that es the awful story of the floodin’ of Wheal Owles,
Thas ’ow the blinds are lowered an’ the Church-bell sadly tolls;
The mine is now a grave-yard, an’ the levels are the graves,
An’ the miners’ dust there slumbers near the wild Atlantic waves!

W. HERBERT THOMAS

For newspaper reports and the names of those killed click here