A bit past the time of asking, but I've just been listening to this on 'Howfen Wakes', the Houghton Weavers' 1976 debut LP for Folk Heritage Recordings. I make out the lyrics as follows:

PRETORIA PIT DISASTER
(Norman Prince)

For come all ye people, listen now
To the tale that I do tell
About the days not long ago
In the year of 1910
The children they lay fast asleep
A-dreamin' of good cheer
And the snow was falling all around
Twas Christmas time of year

As the children lay beneath their sheets
The men did go to work
To feed and clothe their families
From this they did not shirk
They worked down there amongst the dust,
The dampness and the grime
Down at Pretoria Pit it was
That dark and dusty mine

The women they did start their day
To school the kids did go
They laughed and chased with all their friends
As they played there in the snow
Their smiling faces showed us all
How happy they did feel
But the day that lay ahead for them
Would seem to be unreal

At eight o'clock the noise was heard
As far as Bolton town
The workers in the fields, they felt
The shaking of the ground
Not one of them knew what it was
That made their blood run cold
But the feeling, it spread all around
To all, both young and old

From Howfen and from Daisy Hill,
The people they did run
From Wingates and from Atherton
They came from miles around
To see what they could do that day
For the men there on that shift
And they hoped and prayed their loved ones weren't
In on the three-bank pit

The men did dig with their bare hands
While the women knelt and prayed
How many of those boys and men -
How many could they save?
A teenager rescued fifteen
As he dug amongst the slime
And he tried to rescue even more
And he perished in the mine

When all the hours they had gone past
And the final count was made
Three hundred and forty-four were lost
Down in that blackened grave
Three hundred and forty-four were gone
And all those boys and men
Their wives and all their families,
They'd never see again

Now of all the tears that we do shed
And the thoughts that we do hear
Remember one poor mother there
In Wingates she did live
Her husband, he did perish there
Along with her four sons
She lost her family of men
In one short afternoon

Now if ever you feel pity now
And sorry for yourself
Remember all those boys and men
Who died there on that shelf
Remember all those families
Who lost a father dear
In the year of 1910 it was,
At the Christmas time of year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HflHQYShfM