Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Daily Herald Order of Industrial Heroism, the reverse officially engraved, ‘To the Widow of A. Huckerby, Jan. 3rd 1932’, good very fine and very rare thus £600-800

Albert Huckerby, a miner from Bentley, was selected for a posthumous award of the Daily Herald’s Order of Industrial Heroism under the following circumstances:

‘This man showed wonderful pluck and courage. When found he was terribly burnt but insisted that others should be attended to in preference to himself.’

Further details about the incident are to be found in The Order of Industrial Heroism, by Fevyer, Wilson and Cribb:

‘T.U.C. Records:
Four men were selected from the Miners and Rescue Teams who were involved in the Bentley Colliery Disaster of November 1931 as representatives of the Yorkshire Miners Association: W. Ballam, T. Hopkinson (decd.), A. B. Huckerby (decd.) and P. Yates.

The Times, 21 November 1931, p. 12:
Sixteen men were killed and more than 40 injured in a terrific explosion at Bentley Colliery, near Doncaster, last night. There was a sudden flash of flame in the north-east district of the pit, sweeping across eight stalls, throwing down every man in its path and leaving the workers either dead or suffering fearful injuries. Roof falls followed, adding to the horror of the accident. Rescue parties were at once formed, and there was a rush of volunteers to go down in the mine to bring out the victims. The injured men were taken to Doncaster Infirmary.

Graphic stories of the disaster were told by those who had escaped the worst effect of the explosion. One collier said that the cause of the disaster was the “blow-out”. He believed that all those men in the particular district where the explosion had occurred had fallen victims, and had either been killed or injured. “A terrific flash,” he said, “seemed to run across the coal face. We went to see what had occurred and found miners lying about injured. The clothes of many were burned, some were blinded, and some had no clothes left on them.” One of the chief difficulties was identifying the men when they were brought out of the pit. Many were unconscious, and had no marks of identification on them.

Bentley village itself, and Doncaster which lies a few miles away, were alarmed by the news of the disaster. Miner’s wives hurried to the pit head with shawls thrown over their heads and their little children running by their sides. It was indeed a village of tragedy. Most of the men in Bentley are miners, and work either at the Bentley or Brodsworth pits, and are affected by the disaster more severely than if other trades had been existent in the town.

The rescue team was brought quickly on the scene to assist in bringing up the dead or injured. While the rescue team were in the workings a second “Blow-out” occurred, and it is believed that two of the team were injured.’

The authors also make reference to features that appeared in The Doncaster Chronicle. One of these, a photocopy of which is included in the research material that accompanies the lot, makes poignant reference to Huckerby’s widow receiving her late huband’s award at a special local ceremony in January 1932. Moved to tears, she heard Mr. Robert Williams of The Daily Herald explain how he wished he had been able to present the award to its proper recipient.

Note:
In 1923 The Daily Herald, a campaigning left-wing newspaper, observed that there ‘had not yet been established a method of recognising the bravery of the toilers, though scarcely a day passes without some example of valour or self-sacrifice in the industrial field.’ In an effort to address this omission, the newspaper took the decision to establish its own award, The Daily Herald Order of Industrial Heroism. The award was issued on 440 occasions between 1923 and 1964, but very few of them posthumously.