At Viewpark Colliery an overman while working on a hanging scaffold in the shaft fell off and was killed, and a few minutes after an engineer who had been working beside him, while attempting to step across the shaft to a bunton in order to reach the signal wire, also fell down the shaft and lost his life.

Newspaper report- Bothwell pages

The third fatal explosion happened at Ayr Colliery, in No. 1 pit, Drumley, and by it 7 men lost their lives and other 6 were injured. Nos. 1 and 2 pits, Drumley, have recently been sunk, and the Diamond seam, 3 feet 4 inches thick, and lying 189 fathoms from the surface, was being opened up by the longwall system. The annexed plan, No. 1, shows the workings at the date of the explosion. The air current, stated to have amounted to 5,000 cubic feet per minute, circulated as shown by the arrows, and naked lights were in use throughout the workings. It appears that shortly before the explosion the workmen employed in the places A B D E retired to the heading-road to the point K, on account of the roof beginning to "work," and also the hissing noise of a discharge of fire-damp. The fireman, who was in the section F G H, shortly after having left the section from which the men had withdrawn, unaware of what had happened, was returning to these latter places along the airway, and when he had reached the point L, his naked light ignited fire-damp, and caused the explosion, which swept through all the longwall working places, except the place H, and also extended down the heading K. The men employed at H, and two workmen and the manager who were in the level J, were uninjured. Six of the deceased men were at the point K at the time of the explosion, and the seventh was at work in the place F, but was afterwards found at the point M.
From the account given by the survivors, among whom was the fireman whose lamp ignited the gas, there seems to be no doubt that, owing to the working of the roof, there was an outburst of fire-damp, evidently in the vicinity of the working places A or B, and that the gas was carried in an explosive state by the air current to the fireman's naked light. The explosion was not a violent one, and little damage was done to the workings. The manager stated that an hour after the explosion there was no fire-damp or afterdamp in the seam, except a trace of gas near the heading face C, from which the air current was diverted by the screens having been blown down. The workings are dry, and after the explosion there was a coating of coal and clay dust throughout most of the working places, with traces of coked dust on some of the props. Apparently the explosion was intensified by the ignition of the coal-dust.
It appears that some weeks after the explosion the fireman found the roof "working" in the section F G H, and shortly afterwards the whole current in the return airway was fouled by fire-damp, but this soon cleared away, and on inspecting the workings he could find no trace of gas, except in a small hole in the roof. It is unusual in Ayrshire to have sudden outbursts of fire-damp, and in the adjoining pit where the Diamond seam has been worked extensively, such an occurrence is unknown. Since the explosion the pit has been worked with safety-lamps.

NB Deceased were: James McCreadie, Thomas Burns, John White, John Brannigan, Walter Dunlop, Thomas Martin, Hugh McCreadie,

Newspaper Reports

The fourth fatal explosion took place in No. 4 pit, Thankerton. The deceased miner, without having authority to do so, and, therefore, contrary to the regulations, went into a fenced-off disused road to " knock " through to his working place, when his naked light ignited some fire-damp, and he was fatally injured. The road he entered was not the one into which he meant to go.

Newspaper report- Bothwell pages