The Royal Union Steam Navigation Colliery, owned by the Parkend Deep Navigation Collieries Co. Ltd., was begun in 1892 to work the Coleford High Delf coal in the Union gale.  It would appear that the gale was first granted around 1824 to George Powell, a free miner, who then leased his interests to James and Robert Morrell, bankers from Oxford, who held considerable interests in the Forest.  A prospectus, dated about 1838, for the Lydney and Forest of Dean Coal Company gives some details of the colliery.  The company had been formed to raise capital in order to allow the further development of the Morrell’s interests.  Union was described as ‘a colliery "Union Pit", on Miles’ New Level, held subject to a gale rent of £4 4s per annum, capable of immediately producing 20 tons per day, or £1,200 per annum profit.’ Sopwith's survey for the 1841 Coal Awards marks 'Union Pit' to the south of the Parkend Ironworks pond in the Cannop valley, together with a Union Pit in Futterhill and one towards Cannop Bridge together with several shafts on the line of Miles’ Level up Bixslade.  The Morrell’s were also working Miles’ Level and the Hopewell Engine gales and at some point these were joined together physically underground.  Another gale in their possession was the Rising Sun Engine and this too was probably worked as part of the same concern.
Work had certainly stopped on the Union gale by 1877 as in the September it was forfeited back to the Crown under the terms of the 1838 Mines Act.  The registered owners at this time were the trustees of the late James Morrell.
The Union gale, together with Rising Sun Engine gale was regranted on 18 March 1881 to James Young who immediately conveyed them to John Griffiths, apparently for a ‘large sum’. In January 1892 the gales were bought by the Parkend Deep Navigation Collieries Co. Ltd.  In the same year the company sought permission from the Crown to re-open a disused shaft called 'Slade Pit', which, although situated on the Union gale, had been used in conjunction with Miles' Level gale.  This gale was in the hands of the Crown and it was said that the coal within it was exhausted.  Permission to use the shaft was given, with the proviso that the company would sink a new shaft on Miles' Level gale should it be re-granted. In addition the use of the free drainage level once used by Miles' Level was also granted.
Development of the colliery began using the Slade Pit in the hope of producing good strong coal with a large percentage being block.  Thomas Deakin, the managing director of the Parkend Co., writing in August 1896, stated that unfortunately the coal had proved to be ‘slippy’ (tender) and that a little carriage rendered it unmarketable as large coal.  Headings had been driven about a thousand yards but as only about 20% of the coal was sound money was being lost.  Deakin and his co-directors were considering abandoning the colliery but wrote to the Crown to see if a reduction could be made in the dead rents and royalties.  The Union dead rent stood at £200 with a royalty of 3d. per ton, whilst Rising Sun Engine stood at £150 and 3d. respectively.  The Crown decided that for a period of three years the dead rents would be reduced to £100 and £75 and the royalty to 2d.
The appeal for the reduction was renewed in September 1899 as ‘things are no better’.  Water was the great problem at Union and pumping power, equal to 600 gallons a minute or 3,800 tons per 24 hours, had been installed but even so for six weeks at the beginning of the year they were overpowered and the colliery drowned.  The pumping of water was costing about 3d. on the price of a ton of coal.
Some improvements took place at the colliery during the summer of 1899 when a pair of 18" diameter cylinder winding engines and two Lancashire boilers were installed.  Also in 1899 the building of a set of screens and the construction of a set of sidings, which were to come off the Severn & Wye Joint Railway at Bicslade Wharf, was being considered.  These plans were to come to naught as at the time the Crown was contemplating the construction of the 'New Road' from Lydney to Lydbrook.  The cost of bridging this road with the sidings was considered to be too great an outlay and the idea was allowed to lapse.  The output from the colliery was about 100 tons per day and continued to be taken down the Bicslade tramroad for transhipment into railway wagons at Bicslade Wharf, a distance of half a mile.
In August 1901 the Co. was wishing to cross the barrier into Rising Sun Engine but stated ‘we have been more than once drowned out’.
The colliery itself nestled amongst the trees in the sylvan Bicslade valley to the south side of the tramroad, even the engine house chimney stack was difficult to spot from more than fifty yards away.  On the surface the buildings covered a comparatively small area.  A stone-built, pantiled, building served as an office whilst a corrugated iron structure formed the engine house.  A wooden headframe stood over the shaft which, reportedly, had a diameter of 16 feet (from site survey the shaft does appear somewhat smaller in diameter, possibly 10 feet) and reached a depth of 252 feet.  By 1902 a total of about 100 men were employed.  Underground the workings stretched for about a mile due south towards Fetter Hill in two parallel levels, upper and lower, both slanted upwards away from the shaft at a considerable gradient.  Connecting ways came off these, some of which were as steep as 1 in 8.
The tranquillity of the area was, however, disturbed on Thursday 4th September 1902.  The day had begun as normal with the day shift going down ready for a seven o'clock start.  The colliers had walked in little groups from their homes, mainly in the Coleford, Coalway and Berry Hill areas, whilst dawn broke and on reaching the colliery descended the shaft in the small cage.  Amongst the men going down on the various 'bonds', a bond being a cageful, were several sets of brothers including Gwilliams', James', Teagues' and Coopers'.  In most cases the brothers worked together as part of a team under the butty system and once they reached pit-bottom they set off through the darkness of the underground workings guided only by flickering candles and the glimmering light from their carbide lamps.  Some, including Henry Short, James and William Gwilliam and James Hawkins, had to walk a mile to reach their workplaces.  Here they stripped down to a pair of working trousers and their pit-boots and began the arduous toil of extracting the coal.  The method of coal winning operated within the Forest was the 'butty' system.  Here one collier contracted with the mine owner to win coal from a certain area and with his partner, or 'butty', employed additional men and boys.  They worked an area of the coalface, or 'stall', and undertook to get the coal and load it into tubs ready for conveyance to the shaft.  They also brought in materials required in the stall, such as timber for roof supports,which were provided by the mine owner.  Such items as tools and lighting materials, be it carbide lamps or candles, were to be provided by the buttymen.  They made their money on the large coal sent out, no payment was made for small coal or dirt and if the stall they were working was in bad ground then it became difficult to make a profit.
James Gwilliam and his 'butty' Hawkins were 'holing out' underneath the seam of coal ready to bring down another section of the face, this work involved lying on their sides swinging their picks to cut away the waste under the seam to a sufficient depth to allow the coal to fall as required.  William Gwilliam, James's younger brother was acting as trammer.  When coal was being removed he would load it into the 'dram', the small tram used to take the coal along the roadways to pit-bottom.  Today, with waste being removed, he was stacking it in the 'gob' which was the area from which the coal had already been removed as the face progressed forwards.  In order to support the roof over this large area stone walls were built on either side of access roads. The area left between the walls was then filled with the waste material great care being taken not to leave any coal or timber as, when the weight of the roof came on, there would be a risk of spontaneous combustion.  Their labour only stopped for a brief period around mid-day to allow the men to have their 'bait', usually cold tea and bread carried in a bottle and a 'tommy bag'.
After the stoppage for bait, work commenced once again.  Henry Short began filling a dram at a new area of the coalface which he had recently opened up.  It was giving him some concern as water was percolating through the coal.  The situation had been investigated previously by the underground examiner, John Harper, and the under-manager, Charles Cooper, who told him to move five or six yards up the face and work in a slightly different direction adding that the amount of water coming in would soon drain away.  However, on this fateful day at about 12.30 Short noticed the water beginning to come out of the face where he had been stopped from working 'as if coming from a two inch pipe'.  Realising the seriousness of the situation he quickly raised the alarm and headed for pit-bottom whilst the examiner, Harper, warned the rest of the men to leave for the shaft as well.  The water then began to enter the workings with the sound of a thunderstorm and soon nothing could be heard but the crash of timber and trams being thrown about by the rush of water.
Some of the men managed to reach pit-bottom even though the water swirled about them and were hauled to safety in the cage.  The last man out by this route was Albert Gwatkin, who had been working with his brother Herbert, and who had an extremely narrow escape.  Others found their way out through the land workings along the 'windroad', a ventilation adit, and so to the surface.
As soon as first word of the flooding reached the surface the enginemen Amos Brown and James Baldwin began the pumps which were set in the shaft.  These were manufactured by Messrs. Evans & Sons, one had a capacity of 36,000 gallons per hour whilst in the same period the other could lift 50,000 gallons.  As well as worrying about the pumps the two men were engaged in winding the men up the shaft as quickly as possible in safety.  Unfortunately after a few strokes the pumps became blocked with the sludge and debris that was being washed through the workings and so had to be shut down.  With no pumping capability the water soon rose in the shaft, which was at the deepest part of the workings, to a depth of 28 feet.
Cooper the under-manager who was in charge of the colliery that day soon summoned the manager, Ernest Worthy, and the managing director of the Parkend Co., Mr. Thomas Deakin, to the scene.  A roll call revealed that of the 67 men who had descended the shaft that morning nine were unaccounted for.  Thoughts turned to the rescue of the trapped men. It was hoped that they could have reached the upper levels of the workings where a pocket of air might sustain them.  The missing men were Herbert Gwatkin, whose brother was the last up the shaft; Arthur Teague; John Evans; James Gwilliam, whose younger brother reached safety; William Martin; James Hawkins; Thomas Cooper; and the brothers Amos and Thomas James.
Immediate steps were taken to organise a search and rescue party and John Harper, the examiner, set off with a group of volunteers which included William Price, Alfred Roberts, Richard Powell, Albert Webb and Arthur Teagues brother.  They entered the workings via the windroad and soon came upon Arthur Teague and John Evans groping their way along the roadway on their hands and knees in total darkness.  The two men were taken back to the surface but soon after all returned in another attempt to reach the furthest workings.  This, and two further attempts, were thwarted when foul air, or 'blind', was encountered only about 200 yards from their destination.  The foul air, also known as black damp, consisted mainly of carbonic acid and in this case probably came out of the old workings from which the water had broken in.  The acid was formed by the decomposition of the old pit timbers.  As the black damp was considerably heavier than air it lay in the lower workings.
Once on the surface Evans and Teague were soon giving details of their escape.  They had been working together in a dipple, or inclined roadway, close to the place where the James' brothers were working.  They had just finished their bait when they heard the rush of water followed by men shouting that the water had broken in.  They quickly left their workplace and began to make for pit-bottom.  They saw the James' brothers at the top of the dipple then hurried onwards.  Soon the water caught up with them and they were knocked over by its force.  They were swilled along for three or four yards until Evans was swept against an empty dram whilst Teague clutched at a 'tree', or vertical pit-prop.  Whilst being swept along their lights had been extinguished and so now they clutched hold of their sheet anchors whilst the water rushed about them carrying debris which banged into their legs in the stygian darkness.  As Teague was to say later "A man in the dark a mile away from the shaft is in a funny place".
After a while they regained their footing and left the comparative safety of the dram and the tree and, in the inky blackness, made their way into an old stall.  From here they tried to get through the gob into the windroad but could not and so they remained stationary for about an hour-and-a-half during which time the water did not reach them.  Eventually the inrush of water eased and the pair were able to find their way to the windroad by following the pair of signal cables along the main roadway until they came to a road which led to the windroad.  Here they had to feel their way along on hands and knees until with great relief they heard the approach of the rescue party.  They were taken out through an upper landing known as 'Old Bottom' and saw daylight again at 4.30pm.  For Evans it was not his first experience of incoming water for he had been involved in the flooding of the Wimberry Pit in December 1897.  As already mentioned, despite their ordeal the two men returned with the rescue party in another attempt to get into the workings.
Other tales of close escapes were told, some men had been up to their necks in water while Albert Gwatkin, last man up the shaft, had been with three of the missing men, including his brother Herbert.  Albert at one point had been struggling and lost contact with the others, on seeing a light ahead he assumed it was them and pressed on for the shaft to make his escape not seeing the others again.  Some, when the water first broke in did not think it was serious and returned to their workplace for clothing and personal items.  Indeed for those closer to pit-bottom there was time to do this but the brothers James were much nearer to the point where the water came in and although they had been seen in a safe place they returned for their clothes and watches. As a result they were not among those who made good their escape and on the surface the worst was feared for them.
During the early evening, with no hope of entering the workings from the land side through the windroad due to the foul air being encountered a meeting was held between the management and some of the men.  Deakin put forward the various options open and after some discussion they came to a unanimous decision that the only hope was to pump the water out of the pit.  This now stood some thirty-three feet deep in the shaft but it was found possible to lift the small pump further up the shaft and re-fix it.  As the pump weighed between three and four tons this was no easy matter and it was thus not until eight o'clock on the Friday evening that pumping was able to commence.  For the majority of the Thursday night Deakin remained on the scene until it was known that he could do no more but he returned early on the Friday morning.
By this time word had got around the district of the happenings at Union Pit and several hundred people were congregated around the pit-head waiting for news, a pattern that was to be followed for several days to come.
The pumping went on continuously through Friday night and at 6.00am on the Saturday morning the enginemen were lowered down the shaft in a 'bowk', a metal bucket, to inspect the pump.  They found that the water had only been lowered by about three feet.  For the rest of the morning frequent trips were made down the shaft to check the pump which was now reducing the water level, on average, by 5 inches per hour.  6 inch diameter zinc air pipes were also fixed down the side of the shaft to feed air down to the relays of men working on the pump.  In charge of these operations was Richard Burrows the engineer to the Parkend Company.  Supervising the overall rescue attempt were Deakin, Worthy and Cooper along with Mr. F.S. Hockaday, a director of the Parkend Co..  During the morning the district H.M. Inspector of Mines, Mr. J.S. Martin and two of his deputies, Messrs. H. Walker and C.L. Robinson arrived to assess the situation.  They raised the question of attempting to get into the workings by using the disused Hopewell Engine Colliery shaft at Fetter Hill.  A small party of volunteers, led by Mr. Walker, were let down into the abandoned workings, a venture not without considerable risks, but after several hours they returned to the surface having found no way through.  It was obviously hoped that they could work along the Hopewell workings and gain access to the abandoned Miles Level, a possible link being shown on Sopwiths survey.
With the ever growing number of members of the public gathering around the colliery a wire and post fence was erected to keep them away from the immediate area of the pit-head.  Here were gathered the colliery officials and relatives of the missing men.  Perhaps the most poignant vigil being kept was by Abel James whose two sons were among the missing.
By now it was known that the pumping would take several days and at eight o'clock on the Saturday evening the pump was once again stopped.  The 'snorer', a large piece of bell-ended iron pipe at the extreme end of the suction pipe was taken off and brought to the surface where an extra length of pipe was fitted.  The whole thing was then let back down the shaft and re-fixed to the pump.  Water was being pumped again within two hours of the pump being stopped.  When it is considered that the removal of the snorer and its replacement was done by four men standing in the bowk, where there was only sufficient room for each of them to have one leg inside, the manipulation of the heavy machinery was a remarkable feat.
Again the pumping continued all through Saturday night, steam was being supplied to the pump from the boilers which were being worked at a pressure of 80 lbs per sq. inch.  Considerable care was taken not to overstretch the machinery and thus risk losing all.  At 5.35am on Sunday morning the pump was again stopped, the whole thing was lowered further down the shaft and over 16 feet of water pipe and an equivalent length of steam pipe was added.  These works brought about a delay of about five hours.
During the Sunday, the 7th, thousands of people gathered in the wooded valley and silently watched the operations at the colliery.  The worry among the assembly was that if any of the men were still alive then hunger would probably be taking its toll by now, 72 hours after the influx.  All day prayers were said in all places of worship throughout the district and, again, the pumping continued uninterrupted through the night at a steady rate of 40 stokes per minute.  Between 10.00pm on Sunday and 6.00am on Monday morning the water level was lowered by about four feet.  At one point the large pump, which was still submerged, was re-started only to become choked again after a few strokes.  At nine o'clock Deakin, Mr. Rowlinson the local miners' agent, Mr. Walker (who had stayed in the area) and several others had descended the shaft to find that the level of water was only about 3 ft. 6 in. above the brow of the lower levels.  They then entered the upper level, or 'intake airway', in the hope that they could reach the lower levels by means of a cut out and thus get behind the water.  The foul air, however, was so bad that they could not go more than 150 yards and they returned to the surface shortly after 11 o'clock.  After some discussion it was thought that once the water was reduced below the brow of the lower levels then the black damp, being heavier than air, would find an escape and a current of fresh air would flow through the rest of the workings.  At 4.30am Deakin, his son Carl, Rowlinson and Worthy again went down but still found foul air.
Again pumping continued all night.  At 10 o'clock the water still stood about seven feet above the sump at the bottom of the shaft and at midnight some 300 persons were still waiting under the trees around the colliery.  Below ground, however, the air was still bad.  A donkey engine on the surface was set to work for short but frequent periods to create some steam in the shaft in the hope that it would assist the air current.  The pumping continued well and before dawn on the Tuesday it was felt that the workings could be entered safely.  The party this time consisted of Messrs. Worthy, Rowlinson and Carl Deakin and they were quietly let down the shaft.  In the hope that they might find life they took with them a quantity of bread and milk.
For nearly three-quarters-of-a-mile they made their way through the workings guided by the faint light of their lamps without meeting any obstructions until they came upon a lifeless body.  They were unable to identify it but they laid it reverently to one side of the roadway.  They had found the body of 26 year old William Martin of Berry Hill.  His body was not returned to the surface immediately, as one of the searchers was to say later "our job was to rescue the living if they yet lived", and so they continued on into the workings.  With the discovery of the body their spirits had sunk slightly and as if to show this the food and drink was left behind at this point.
They had not gone more than another 400 yards when they heard a weak and husky voice.  Hurrying on they came across three men huddled together.  They were faint with hunger and chilled to the bone after nearly 120 hours of entombment in the blackness of the dripping pit.  After being given a small amount of brandy and water the three of them, Thomas Cooper, James Gwilliam and James Hawkins asked for food.  Before Rowlinson returned for it the whole party knelt in prayer to give thanks for the mens deliverance.  Upon Rowlinsons return they were given small quantities of bread soaked in milk and brandy and then Carl Deakin returned to pit-bottom and was hauled up to the surface.  Word quickly spread amongst the large crowd at the pit-head that survivors had been found and messages were sent out to the relatives and friends of those men.  The crowd then began to grow as people came from all over the district upon hearing the news and when day broke the tip and the approach road were covered in a dense crowd.
Mr. Deakin snr. and Dr. Currie, who together with Dr. Trotter had been in almost constant attendance, were the next to go down the shaft taking with them warm tea and bovril.  Thomas Cooper was keen to walk back to the daylight but the wiser council of Dr. Currie prevailed.  With the air now being reasonably fresh there was no hurry to get the men out and so a gang of volunteers cleared the main roadway rails of sludge and debris so that the survivors could be taken to pit-bottom on a dram.  They were then hauled carefully up the shaft and carried to the warmth of the engine room where they were wrapped in blankets and given more warm refreshment.  Their faces and hands were washed and they were given warm clothes to put on.
People all around were saying 'Thank God' for the men's survival and the crowd were then addressed by T.H. Deakin.  He ended by asking them to join in the singing of the Doxology which was done with great fervour and emotion.  'The scene was moving in the extreme' and the sound echoed off the hillsides drowning out the weeping of the women.  The rescued men were then taken to their homes to further recover.
Later in the day another search party found the bodies of Thomas and Amos James in an upright position and hand in hand.  They looked as though they had been pressing on for pit-bottom when the water overtook them only 100 yards away from their goal.  They were also only 15 feet from a passage by which they could have reached the upper airway and safety but having lost their lamps they were unable to see it.  Both were fully clothed which confirmed the statements of some of the men that they had once reached safety but had returned to fetch their clothes and watches and thus to loose their lives.  Thomas was 27 and married with one child whilst Amos was only 20 and single.
The body of 26 year old Herbert Gwatkin could not immediately be found and it was supposed that he was buried beneath one of several falls.
The bodies were taken to pit-bottom where it was intended they would remain until the cover of darkness hid the scene of their removal from the pit.  The relatives of the men, however, persuaded the management to bring them up as soon as possible and so a double wall of tarpaulins was built to screen the way from the pit-head to a temporary mortuary which had been put up about 20 yards away.  The building of the screening arrangements did not stop some climbing higher up the hillsides and into trees to try and catch a glimpse of the blanket covered bodies being brought out one by one and taken to the mortuary where coffins awaited them.
When the survivors had recovered sufficiently their traumatic experiences were recounted.  As already mentioned Gwilliam and Hawkins were working together holing out.  Hawkins was the first to hear the noise "I do believe the waters broke out" he told Gwilliam and immediately afterwards added "Yes, the waters broke in". Gwilliam then dropped the tools he was using, sprang to his feet, threw his jacket over his arm, picked up his water bottle and began to make his way out.  Hawkins, having put his jacket on, was not far behind.  When they got into the roadway they saw Herbert Gwatkin lighting his lamp from a candle and all three of them began to run as best they could towards pit-bottom with the water all around them.  Gwilliam and Hawkins were following behind Gwatkin when for some reason their candles went out.  First they tried one roadway and then another but always there was water.  Gwatkin then tried to cross the main roadway but was swept away by the force of the water and not seen again.  Hawkins also parted company with Gwilliam who was himself now being swept along by the flood, just managing to keep his head above the surface as he was knocked against the side of the roadway and the pit timbers.  Eventually he swilled against a 'tree' and hung on.  Once the rush of water had slackened he attempted to work out where he was by feel and soon came across Cooper.  A little later Hawkins re-joined them and from then on the three stayed together.  Gwilliam then began to look around and found his way into a stall where he came across a bottle containing cold tea and a 'tommy bag' in which he found a morsel of bread.  Returning to the others they shared out the food, not knowing that this was to be the last they were to have for nearly five days.  Water was not such a problem as Gwilliam and Hawkins continued to fetch fresh supplies from a little rill nearby until they became too weak from hunger and cramp to walk and so had to crawl and roll their way to and fro.  Cooper was too weak to do anything being by far the oldest of the three at 52 and was a cause of concern to the other two who did not think he would last out.  The three of them lost all track of time and when rescue came early on the Tuesday morning they thought it was only Sunday morning.
The funerals of Amos and Thomas James were conducted at Coleford on the afternoon of Thursday the 11th.  The cortege consisted of family mourners, including their father Abel who had kept a continual vigil at the pithead, and the Yorkley Excelsior band.  Thomas was buried with full military honours as he was a member of the Coleford Company 2nd Volunteer Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment.  A firing party of twelve gave him a last salute.  They are buried together with the inscription;

A SUDDEN CHANGE AT GODS command they fell
They had no time to bid their friends farewell.

Sadly, the grave also contains Eliza who was the daughter of Thomas and his wife Fanny.  At the time of the accident she was seven months old and died in January 1903 aged eleven months.
The following day saw the funeral of William Martin at Christ Church, mourned by his wife, Elizabeth, and four young children.  His epitaph reads;

In Perfect health he left his home
He little thought his time was come
It was a time that God saw best
To take him to eternal rest.

The body of Herbert Gwatkin was not found until the following Sunday at 10.00pm when it was discovered, by James Watson and George Horrobin, in a dipple known as 'Howell's'.  He was laid to rest alongside Martin at Christ Church during the afternoon of Tuesday 16th, his epitaph being;

Oh what a sudden chance in a moment I fell
I had not time to bid my friends farewell.
Weep not for me but refrain from tears
I hope in Christ to meet again
Gone but not forgotten.

  Interestingly the headstones of Martin and Gwatkin are identical and were probably provided by the Parkend Company.

A message of sympathy was sent to the grieving families from King Edward VII from Balmoral via Sir Charles Dilke the local M.P.  '. . . to express to the families of the unfortunate men who have lost their lives through the late lamentable accident at Parkend, His Majesty's heartfelt sympathy and condolence, and to assure them that his sorrow for the irreparable loss which they have sustained is very great and sincere'.
A fund was started for the families of the deceased to which the Parkend Co. contributed £100.  Most of the other mine owners in the Forest also gave.
It would appear that Worthy was charged on the day of the accident that ‘then being the Manager of a certain mine there situate called the Navigation Colliery (Union Gale) belonging to the Parkend Deep Navigation Colliery Co. unlawfully did not keep in the office at the said Mine the plan required to be kept in pursuance of section 34 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1887 and showing the position of the workings with the regard to the surface contrary to the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1896.’
At the Accident Inquiry a combination of factors was alledged to have brought about the disaster. The water which burst into the Union with such force had come from the old workings of Miles' Level.  Here, after the abandonment of the colliery, the water had been allowed to build up because no pumping was taking place on the gale.  However, a barrier of coal, thirty yards wide, should have existed between the two gales, left under the Forest Mine Laws for the protection of the gale in the deep.  In this case the barrier was obviously not this wide as the Union workings were, unknowingly, many yards out from where it was thought they were.  It was said that this error stemmed from 1896 when the Crown surveyor gave the Union management a plan showing the position of the Slade Pit relative to other workings.  Unfortunately the positioning of Slade Pit was inaccurate and so the underground workings of the Union commenced at a point far closer to the old workings than imagined.  It was also said at the inquest on the four dead colliers, and at the following trial of the manager, Worthy, that the plan should have been checked on the ground.  This was one of the first things that Worthy did when things had settled down in an attempt to find the cause of the disaster and he found the Hopewell Pit 79 yards closer to Union than it was marked on the plan.  Another factor was that the Miles' Level owners had not kept their plan up to date and there were several dipples running towards, if not actually into, the barrier.  This meant that on the Thursday morning there was less than a yard of coal left between the two sets of workings at the place where Harry Short had been working.
The inquest jury were critical of the colliery's management finding that 'the owners of the Colliery were guilty of neglect in not taking the necessary precautions to ascertain the proximity of the old workings at Miles Level from whence the water came.  Although the coroner's court found against the company all of the men working at the Union and at other pits owned by the Parkend Deep Navigation Collieries were firmly behind them.  The coroner's court jury gave all of their expenses, a sum of £2 2s to the disaster fund.
The prosecution of Worthy was set to come before Coleford Police Court on 9 December and this, plus the statement at the accident enquiry that a plan supplied by the Crown was at fault, sparked a flurry of letter writing between the Inspector of Mines and the Deputy Gaveller, Forster Brown.  The prosecution wished to call an assistant to the Deputy Gaveller who in his statement recorded:
‘I am acquainted with the plans of the Navigation Colliery... ...and have made copies from time to time’. ‘I have, subsequent to the 4th Septr., made a Survey from the Navigation Pit to the Hopewell Pit, both underground and on the surface.’
‘I found the relative positions of the shafts and the boundary stone No 77 to be practically correct, but the underground workings were at the further end (where the water broke in from the Hopewell workings into the Navigation workings) about 70 yards wrong in relation to the surface.’
‘The inaccuracy... ...is due to the underground workings having been plotted to a meridian which is not the accurate magnetic meridian.  Had the surface been checked and plotted to this same meridian, the relative positions of the underground workings and the surface would have been shewn correctly’
‘At a certain point where 70 yards of solid coal would have existed according to the plan, the Navigation workings holed into the Hopewell workings’
It was the wish of the Crown to show that the surface plan was correct and that the underground workings were plotted incorrectly whilst Worthy contended that he believed that the Crown should have, and indeed as far as he was concerned had, supplied him with an accurate plan.
Forster-Brown replied to H.M. Inspector of Mines, J. S. Martin, who had been present during the rescue, that he believed it to be the duty of the Home Office to have an independant survey made and that without his assistants evidence the Home Office would have ‘very little case’.
Martin in turn replied that he believed the Deputy Gaveller’s assistant should give evidence to prove the accuracy of the plan he gave ‘pointing out that although a meridian marked on it was not a correct meridian, if the surface has been checked by the Manager of the Colliery the error would have been at once apparent.’
Whoever was at fault, either the Crown in supplying an incorrect plan in 1896 or Worthy for trusting that the plan given to him by his landlord was completely correct, cannot at this distance in time be fully determined but at Coleford Police Court in December 1902 Worthy was fined a nominal 1/- and no costs were awarded.
Deakin was not prepared to take the risk of working the Union again with the uncertainty of where the old workings were and so he decided to close the colliery (possibly the judgment was also assisted by the fact that the colliery appeared to be working at a loss).  By November the underground plant was already being removed and all the men were found employment in the other collieries belonging to the company.  In January 1903 the men from Union presented him with an illuminated scroll thanking him for his work during those long days in September.
The gale itself was sold to the Princess Royal Collieries Co. Ltd. by January 1904 who worked the remaining coal in the direction of Fetter Hill from their Park Gutter and Flour Mill pits.
Worthy remained in the Forest for some years with the Parkend Co. and by 1915 was a partner in the Grove Colliery Co. at Whitecroft.  A Devonian by birth he had come to the Forest about 1880 as manager of the Parkend and New Fancy Collieries and died in October 1923.
The last survivor of the disaster, James Gwilliam, died in 1949 at the age of 74.  He had continued work underground at Cannop Colliery and then at Eastern United Colliery where he was injured in an accident in 1937.
Thus ended the last direct link with the disaster which rates as one of the worst to have hit the Forest of Dean coalfield.