16th April 1907.
On the night of the 16th of April 1907, two tragic deaths happened at Ferniegair, these deaths were not connected to one another, but both very tragic & unfortunate.
David Barrie who was only age 15 and was employed at Allanton Colliery as a Haulage man had not long finished his shift and was heading out to play a game of football with his friends.
At the time of David’s death, he lived at 11 Allanton Terrace in Ferniegair and had he was killed only yards from his front door. Crossing the Lesmahagow branch line of the Caledonian Railway, he crossed at the section between Allanton & Hamilton Rows to get to the football field where he was struck by a passenger train and he was killed instantly.
David was said to have been a very bright and kind pleasant boy and his parents were said to have been totally grief stricken.
His mother later wrote a notice of thanks in the Hamilton Advertiser for the many bunches of flowers sent to the family. Hamilton & Allanton Row’s have long been demolished and the area where they once stood has been reclaimed by woodland, the Lesmahagow branch of Caledonian railway was closed to passengers on the 4th of October 1965 and was reopened 40 years later as the Larkhall to Hamilton branch on the 9th of December 2005.
The second death to occur on that same night was that of John Nisbet age 38.
John Nisbet, also, of Ferniegair was a brushing contractor working at Ross Colliery. He and another workman had been working deep underground in the pit when he set 3 charges of dynamite for the purpose of blasting.
Having fired the fuse, they both ran off to a safe distance to wait on the charges going off and having what they mistakenly thought was 3 charges detonating, it unfortunately turned out to be only two, one of the charges must have caused an echo.
John went to proceed and check that his work had been successfully completed and went forward to examine the section of the mine when the third explosion detonated late. John’s head was completely blown off.
In 1907, accidents were frequent in Hamilton’s coal mines and only 4 days prior to this, another man was killed at the same colliery.
Both David Barrie & John Nisbet are buried at the Bent Cemetery side by side each other, one notable feature of the headstones is that John’s still looks good to this day and David’s has been weathered away. This tells us that John being killed while at work likely had his headstone paid for by the Ross colliery and David’s would have been paid for by the family.
Researched & Written by Garry L McCallum – Historic Hamilton 2025 ©
Very interesting and also very tragic.