Home Page   Family History    Vaughan Family Start   28 March 2007

Frank, a miner, and Sarah Logan married in 1908 @ Maryport and lived on the Solway-Firth border.  In all they had nine children, though two died fairly young.

Frank’s Northern Irish family ancestry, via the Neil’s, is evident in that he, was a member of Cumberland’s Orange Order; marching and playing the drum through the streets.  The couple were members of  the Salvation Army and both Frank and Thomas learned to play the cornet.

During WWI, Frank dug tunnels for mines under the Somme and helped fill them with an explosive he called AMUL – an explosive that is now no longer used.

Circa 1922-1924 Frank was underground when two large pit accidents occurred.   The Whitehaven coal field suffered many disasters and innumerable smaller accidents. It has been estimated that over 1200 men, women, and children have lost their lives while winning coal in the Whitehaven collieries.   Frank's son Bob described these as the Haig and Williams pits.  However, when Pit disasters were checked on the web all those involving the death of 10 or more men at the two pits were as follows:

                Date                                     Pit                                          Deaths

1922 5th September,   Haig Pit, Whitehaven, Cumberland #1 {es}       39

1927 13th December, Haig Pit, Whitehaven, Cumberland #2 {es}         4

1928 3rd January,       Haig Pit, Whitehaven, Cumberland #3 {es}       14

1931 29th January,     Haig Pit, Whitehaven, Cumberland #4 {es}       27

1947 15th August,      William Pit, Whitehaven, Cumberland {es}      104

 "Great Pit Disasters" by Helen & Baron Duckham (ISBN 0 7153 5717 4); "Most Valiant of Men" by Fred Leigh (ISBN 1 85770 055 4) and various mines inspectors reports.

One of the two disasters must have been at the Haig Pit in 1922.  Though Frank was lucky and got out early.  The second disaster couldn't however have been the one listed at the William Pit above, since Frank had moved from the area at that time, however, the following photographs were located on the web:

	Listed on the right and repeated below are ALL the accidents where men died.  And on the 11th July 1922 a pit accident did occur in the William Pit though fortunately it only killed 2 men.
	26 April            1810     2 13 April            1821   12 13 October      1823    32 2 January        1826      9 18 March        1828      1 6 February     1830      3 18 February   1839    23	17 December 1847         1 12 December 1850         2 25 April          1882        4 26 November 1907        5 11 July          1922       2 3 November   1941      12 15 August     1947    104

It was these accidents that caused Frank to move from Maryport to Hatfield’s main colliery at Stainforth.

                First house was at 14 Duke Street.

                Second at Church Street

                Third at 31 Princes Avenue

Financially, money was short – Tommy was sent around to the Bakers shop to buy yesterday’s bread ‘’cos then got them half price.’ When Frank had a boiled egg, there was competition amongst the children as to who would get the top.  As children the kids wore clogs. On weekdays the clogs had steel studs, on Sundays rubber ones – as Bob commented, the latter ‘wouldn’t kick sparks’. At table the younger children kept quiet.

The elder brothers followed their father’s occupation and were sent down the mines at the earliest opportunity. Tommy was determined not to become a miner. To ensure that this didn’t happen, he went to night classes on book-keeping. Whilst at these classes, Tommy impressed a man who helped him to get a job in Stainforth’s coalmine offices. Thus, when he left school, aged 14, and his parents insisted that he had to get a job ‘down the Pit’, he said that he didn’t - because he "already had a job in the offices".

According to Bob, Tommy’s first job was actually at Pilkington’s.  Bob, Frank’s youngest son, says that Frank told him not to go down the pit so, after leaving school at 14, Bob obtained a job in the pit office. It was apparently only for a short time, however, because after an argument Bob hit someone and had to leave.

The family moved to Blackpool during World War II.  The couple’s marriage ended when Frank was accused (wrongly according to Stella, his daughter in law) of being unfaithful.  His wife apparently filled plastic bags with his clothes and put them outside the house. Subsequently he lived in a static caravan

Frank died in 1963 aged 74. Sarah lived until 1974 aged 88. Sadly, no photographs of Frank and Sarah Logan’s family have been found other than the picture on the right of Grandma Vaughan (Sarah). The photograph was taken when she was 61 years of age and was sent by her to her daughter Louie. Anita’s memories of Grandma Vaughan is that she was a hard-faced, formidable, strict woman. When Anita told her that the wedding was being brought forward, Grandma Vaughan’s comment was that Anita must be pregnant. When Anita responded that she "must have become pregnant by letter because Les was at sea"; Grandma’s response was to slap Anita, knocking her to the other side of the room Anita’s memory of Grandma Vaughan was of a hard-faced, formidable, strict woman. When Anita told her that the wedding was being brought forward, Grandma Vaughan’s comment was that Anita must be pregnant. When Anita responded that she "must have become pregnant then by letter because Les was at sea"; Grandma’s response was to slap Anita, knocking her to the other side of the room.