The opening stages of the inquiry had been in the nature of single combat between ill-matched pairs of opponents. When the senior management retired from the arena to bind up their wounds the conflict became more general, a mêlée involving counsel, officials, miners and spokesmen for all parties.

One of the most significant facts to emerge from the evidence of Bonsall and Williams was that at the time of the accident, and indeed during most night shifts, the pit was for practical purposes being run by the officials, that is, the overman and the firemen in charge of the various districts. (Terminology in this area was as bewilderingly capricious as elsewhere in the mine. The ‘overman’ was inferior to the ‘under-manager’ but during his shift had charge of the whole pit.) As Bonsall had conceded in reply to Cripps, there was a period before the night shift came on when the Dennis Section was without even an overman; and when the night shift overman did come on he could scarcely have time to travel once round the whole area during his spell of duty. Supervision of the pit was therefore largely in the hands of the firemen; it was to them that the Commission must look for a detailed picture of the state of the pit on the fateful night, and it was their ambiguous role in the hierarchy of management which virtually ensured that the picture would be as obscure and misleading as they could make it.