Stevenston - On This Day In History

Published stories from each town's past.
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Re: Stevenston - On This Day In History

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GLASGOW HERALD
11 FEBRUARY 1896

THE AUCHENHARVIE COLLIERY DISASTER

Last night in Stevenston Public School, gold badges were presented to those men who had assisted in rescuing the miners entombed after the flooding of the pit at the late disaster.

Mr Hugh Thomson presided, and there was a good attendance.

The badges were handed to the following men: -

William Jackson,
James Mitchell,
Kelso Park,
John McIntyre,
James Park,
Neil Wilson,
Daniel Blythe,
J. McDonald,
A. McQuater,
W. Docherty,
G. Park,
D. McQueeny,
Thomas Auld,
W. Kilpatrick,
Joseph Hamilton,
James McQueeny,
James Kelly,
Thomas Burns,
John Mill,
D. Frew,
James Hill,
H. Hamilton,
W. Park,
W. Boyle,
Thomas McCulloch,
W. Hamilton,
S. McKnight,
Thomas Milligan,
Samuel McCulloch,
P. McQuade,
D. Auld,
William Logan,
Charles Clark,
Robert Park,
A. McAdam,
W. Hamilton,
Michael McCarroll.
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Hughie
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Re: Stevenston - On This Day In History

Post by Hughie »

Must see if we can get an image of one of those gold badges. :)

Added
Here's a link to the image : viewtopic.php?p=186967#p186967
Last edited by Hughie on Wed Sep 06, 2023 10:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Added link to requested image
hahaya2004
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Re: Stevenston - On This Day In History

Post by hahaya2004 »

This is a description of the badge, from the A & S Herald 14th February 1896:
- The gold badge is in the form of a star, and bears the inscription "Auchenharvie Colliery Disaster, 2nd August, 1895", with the name of the recipient. -
The most important hour is always the present, the most significant person is the one opposite you right now, and the most necessary deed is always love. - Meister Eckhart (c.1260 - c.1328)
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Re: Stevenston - On This Day In History

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GLASGOW HERALD
12 FEBRUARY 1886

FATAL ACCIDENT ON RAILWAY

Yesterday morning a surfaceman, JAMES STEWART, residing at Union Place, Kilwinning, who wrought on the Stevenston branch of the Glasgow & South-Western Railway, was ACCIDENTALLY killed.

While working about nine o'clock on the line between Dubbs and Kilwinning, he had stepped from one line to another, and the Belfast goods train passing some time late, knocked him down. Death seemed instantaneous. He was about 66 years of age and unmarried.

He was carried about twenty yards with the shock.
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Re: Stevenston - On This Day In History

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GLASGOW HERALD
13 FEBRUARY 1829

BIRTH

At his seat, near Exeter, the lady of Alexander Hamilton, Esquire, of the Retreat, Dumfriesshire, and Hullerhirst, Ayrshire, a son.
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Re: Stevenston - On This Day In History

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GLASGOW HERALD
13 FEBRUARY 1894

THE STORM

Stevenston:
A considerable part of the strong fencing enclosing the ground of the Thistle Football Club was levelled to the ground.

The streets of the town bore traces of the severity of the gale, slates and chimney cans lying about in all directions.
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Re: Stevenston - On This Day In History

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GLASGOW HERALD
14 FEBRUARY 1899

WIFE ASSAULT

At Kilmarnock Sheriff Court yesterday WILLIAM BEATTIE, senior, brusher, Ardeer Square, Stevenston, pleaded guilty to having on the 11th instant, assaulted his wife, Martha Hughes or Beattie, by kicking her on the body and right hand.

He had been previously convicted. Sentence of £3, or 30 days’ imprisonment was passed.
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Re: Stevenston - On This Day In History

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GLASGOW HERALD
15 FEBRUARY 1908

DISTRESSING FATALITY AT ARDEER

At the shooting range at Nobel’s Explosives Factory, Ardeer, Stevenston, an unfortunate accident took place yesterday, by which Mr Frank Lyall, chemist and superintendent of the laboratories, was fatally shot.

Mr Lyall had been testing cartridges at the range in the presence of one of the head office officials from Glasgow and a Canadian visitor. There were three assistants to Mr Lyall, one of whom, who had been fifteen years in the service, was looking after the gun.

The rifle used was a No. 22 magazine, and the range was about ten yards.

Mr Lyall was standing at the target in the act of changing it, when, through some mistake, a shot was fired, the bullet entering his back, killing him instantly.

The unfortunate affair caused consternation among those at the range.

Mr Lyall was very popular at the factory, where he had been for twenty years, and his death has caused a widespread feeling of regret. He was in his forty-fourth year, unmarried, and resided at Ailsa View, Stevenston. His parents reside in Dumfries.
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Re: Stevenston - On This Day In History

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GLASGOW HERALD
15 FEBRUARY 1974

ARDEER BLAST INQUIRIES START

Two separate inquiries were being conducted last night into the explosion at the Nobel Explosive Company’s plant at Ardeer, Ayrshire, in which a 56 year-old foreman was killed and three process workers were injured.

The investigations were being carried out by teams from the Company and Home Office inspectors.

The man who died was Mr WILLIAM MCMILLAN, of 27 White Craig Road, Ardrossan, Ayrshire. He had worked at Ardeer for 39 years.

Workmates said later it was the merest chance that he should have been at the spot where the explosion occurred as his duties concerned the supervision of a group of five mills, any one of which he could have been visiting at the time.

Mr McMillan’s son, who is a policeman, was sent to man an emergency point duty position to speed ambulances from the factory, unaware that his father was among the casualties. He was later sent home.

The most seriously injured of the process workers was Mr John Coulter, aged 33, of 44 Dick Crescent, Irvine. He was seriously ill in Kilmarnock Infirmary last night suffering from multiple burns.
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Re: Stevenston - On This Day In History

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GLASGOW HERALD
16 FEBRUARY 1944

SCOTS EXPLOSIVES FACTORY – SPECIAL SAFETY CAMPAIGN

In a West of Scotland explosives factory, where 85 per cent of the workers are women, there were 1150 lost-time accidents last year, accounting for a loss of nearly £100,000 in wages.

They were not the result of explosions or fires, the evidence of which is, happily, very small, but of those petty human failings in the maladroit handling of objects, in striking unexpected protuberances in the black-out, in ordinary falls. In fact, they were accidents of the type one might encounter in one’s own home, and of such a nature that the special safety campaign now being run by the management and workers may readily reduce.

That campaign, several aspects of which were seen by a Glasgow Herald representative this week, is taking various forms, all designed in their simplicity to bring home to the workers the need for care.

The campaign’s slogan is “Watch your Step.”

“What one may call mechanical accidents,” Dr. A. D. Lees, assistant superintendent, told the Glasgow Herald, “are very limited. Most of the accidents are of people falling off buses or being knocked down, or letting boxes fall on their toes, and so on. But last year’s figure was pretty staggering, and it was because we ought properly to be ashamed of it that we decided to start a campaign to publicise safety.”

BROADCAST TALKS

The campaign includes daily broadcast talks by the management and workers from a pleasant studio over an excellent internal system to the factory’s 43 canteens, a shield competition to find monthly the most accident-free shift, a visual reminder to workers on the various shifts in the painting daily of “bricks” on the side of a “house” just inside the works entrance – a row for each day and a black “brick” to denote an accident – and the showing of films, several of them taken in sections of the factory, with commentaries by Frank Phillips.

“The workers have done and are doing a very good job of work,” said Dr. Lees, “and we have to remember that many of them are strange to this class of work, but most of our accidents, are extremely simple, and I think the campaign should achieve its end.”
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Re: Stevenston - On This Day In History

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Kilmarnock Herald and Ayrshire Gazette
February 17, 1939

More Employees For Ardeer Works

Scouting around Stevenston I heard, and, mind you, from a reliable source, that some four hundred new hands are expected to be given a start at Nobel's Works within the next week or two. At the present time there are something like four thousand employees within the works. So, if that number is started the aggregate number will be around the four thousand five hundred mark.

(Later that year WW2 began)
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Re: Stevenston - On This Day In History

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GLASGOW HERALD
17 FEBRUARY 1882

STEVENSTON – DEATH OF A SCHOOLBOY UNDER PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES

A boy named PATRICK KELLY, aged 8 years, son of HUGH KELLY, steamboat fireman, died suddenly about 5 o’clock on Wednesday evening under circumstances which have called for an investigation by the authorities.

The boy, it appears, was attending Stevenston Public School, and on Tuesday, it is said, was punished by a pupil-teacher named GRACE GAIT.

On returning home he complained of being unwell, and went to bed. Medical assistance was obtained, but the boy died the next day.

It is alleged that the pupil-teacher struck the boy about the head. This is denied by her, and she states that he received only slight punishment on the head. It is also said that the boy met with an accident on Monday, falling from a dyke on his head.

Miss Gait was taken before the Sheriff at Kilmarnock yesterday and after emitting a declaration she was liberated pending the result of an inquiry into the case.

A post-mortem examination was made by Doctor McFarlane, Kilmarnock, but the result has not been made known.
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