The Northern Mine Research Society (NMRS), citing the 1878 Mines Inspectors Report, gives six names: Patrick Houghnie, aged 36; his son Martin, aged 16; Patrick Hopkins, aged 20; Thomas Murdoch, aged 50; Robert Murdoch, aged 20; and Michael Currie, aged 40. A local-history transcription of newspaper accounts gives overlapping names but some ages and spellings differ: it has Thomas Murdoch aged 48 and uses variants such as Clelland/Clelland for the accused engine-keeper. These small discrepancies are preserved rather than silently normalised; the available accounts do not settle the age and spelling variants. NMRS record · trial-report transcription

The April inquiry, as reproduced from the Hamilton Advertiser of 27 April 1878, concerned whether engine-keeper Arthur Clelland had culpably failed to stop the winding engine. Witnesses described an indicator that displayed the cage's position, a brake, signals between the pit bottom and surface, and a landing about 32 feet below the pulley frame. The case exposed disagreement over the indicator: the colliery engineer said it was sufficiently secure and had worked properly; other engine-keepers described looseness, vibration, prior overwinding and uncertainty in reading a dial marked with chalk. Evidence also described duties to inspect and report machinery. These are trial testimonies reproduced in a secondary local-history source, not findings independently verified from the court record. trial-report transcription

The jury found Clelland “not proven”, and he was discharged. That verdict does not itself establish the indicator as the cause, nor settle how responsibility was divided between equipment, inspection and operation. The inquiry matters as a distinct occupational-safety event within the history of Blantyre Colliery, between the 1877 explosion and the 1879 firedamp explosion. Its victims' homes included Dixon's Rows, Ann Street in Burnbank, Stonefield and Gardiner Place in Auchinraith, showing the mining workforce's links across localities. trial-report transcription · accident account