Abram Colliery explosion, 1881

Three minutes past noon on 19 December 1881, a report heard three miles off: firedamp had exploded in the Yard seam of the Abram Coal Company's No. 4 pit outside Wigan. Forty-one bodies were brought out and seven of those rescued alive died afterwards, making forty-eight dead — twenty-five widows and seventy-three fatherless children. The inquest jury found a sudden outburst of gas caused by weighting of the roof, but could not say how it was fired, and criticised the colliery's discipline over the relighting and relocking of lamps.

Cause

A sudden outburst of firedamp released by a severe weighting of the roof in the westerly wide works, ignited by a means the inquest could not establish — most probably, the Home Office counsel thought, by the flame being driven onto the gauze of a securely locked Davy lamp by the strong ventilating current.

Contributing factors

An air current so strong that men worked in their shirts — which, the Home Office counsel argued, itself raised the risk that gas would be driven onto a Davy gauze. Air 'considerably impeded in several places by gobbing up the dirt behind the brattice'. Great laxity in relighting and relocking lamps. Special rules that were common form for the district rather than adapted to the mine, never read to a largely illiterate workforce, and that told the manager and the men to comply with the Coal Mines Regulation Act only so far as was 'reasonably practicable'.

What happened

The Yard seam lay at 520 yards and was reached by two eighteen-foot shafts; the Lower Arley was deeper still. Both were worked longwall, with locked safety lamps and blasting forbidden; a 46-foot Guibal fan was passing nearly eighty thousand cubic feet of air a minute. The workings were only three years old and not extensive — 220 yards on the west side, 400 on the east. The mine was considered safe, and an unlocked lamp had never been found in it. Two hundred and twenty men and boys went down that morning: a hundred and fifty into the Lower Arley and seventy into the Yard. At three minutes past noon came the report, and then dust and smoke out of the shaft. The certificated manager Thomas Taylor had just come up from an inspection that had shown nothing wrong. The downcast cage was jammed by the blast and had to be repaired before he could go down at three o'clock, to find the mouth of the Yard smashed and fires raging; extinguishers were borrowed from the neighbouring pits. Until about four it was not known whether the hundred and fifty men in the Arley were alive. The underlooker Green had kept them near the mouthing in the strong air current, and when the cage was working by five they came up, bruised and in the dark but otherwise unhurt. Getting the men out of the Yard was slow. Twenty-six had been brought up alive by half past nine, many badly burnt and needing artificial respiration after the afterdamp; among the dead was Richard James Cronshaw, the underlooker, son of the vicar of St Thomas's, Wigan. One man came out alive thirteen hours after the explosion; nobody found after him was. Clearing continued all that week, the last body recovered on Sunday 31 December; fifteen tons of debris were wound out of the dib hole, and in the last stages a man's head was found in the falls, so that a body already buried had to be interred a second time at Lowton.

Rescue & recovery

The fires were out by six on the Tuesday morning. Forty-one bodies were brought out of the pit in all. Every man at the colliery belonged to the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Permanent Relief Society, which paid ten shillings a week and medical help to the disabled, five shillings a week to a widow and half a crown for each child, with funeral grants — and which complained at the second sitting of the inquest that by paying the funeral money on identification rather than waiting for the registrar's certificate it had broken the Friendly Societies Act.

Investigation & inquiry

Two formal sittings at the Forester's Arms, Abram, on 22 and 28 December took only evidence of identification; one body was recognised by a widow who knew her husband's red flannel drawers and clogs. The main inquest opened before Coroner Baker on 24 February 1882 in the school the company had built in Bickershaw Lane, and heard over eighty witnesses. A. Young, attending for the Treasury, watched the proceedings with Henry Hall, H.M. Inspector, and took part in examining forty-six of them. The scientific witnesses — Higson, who happened to be nearby when it happened, Greenwell, Hedley the assistant inspector and Hall — agreed that a weighting or fall in the west wide works had caused a sudden outburst of gas. William Westhead gave the only direct evidence of the weighting: it had been severe enough to drive several men out of their places about an hour before; the alarm passed, the men went back, and they were killed.

Legal & regulatory aftermath

The jury found a sudden outburst of gas in the westerly wide works, ignited by means they had not evidence to show; recommended air crossings on the south-west and north-east jig brows and brick stoppings in front of dirt stoppings; found 'great laxity of discipline in relighting and relocking the lamps'; asked that the key be kept by the fireman or another appointed person; and said that Thomas Taylor, the certificated manager, 'gave his evidence most unsatisfactorily'. There was no prosecution, and feeling in the district ran high. In 1883 a Wigan radical, George Roby, published 'A Critical Examination of the Inquest of the Abram Colliery Explosion', denouncing the way the owners' and the government's witnesses had between them buried the question of negligence, and noting that the colliers were 'afraid to speak unless they are prepared to burn their boats behind them and leave the district'.

Changes to practice & legislation

Young's letters to the Home Secretary, Sir William Vernon Harcourt, drew a conclusion the jury would not: that if the gas had been fired against the air current on a locked Davy gauze, then 'to prevent the recurrence of a like disaster, the ventilation must be reduced or a more perfect lamp adopted' — and that 'a similar explosion may occur again at any time and will occur almost certainly if another outburst of gas takes place when the men are at work'. Both juries, he reported, agreed on the need for a safer lamp than the Davy in the Wigan district. He also urged that locked lamps be made compulsory in a mine like Abram rather than left to the manager's discretion under Special Rule 12.

Memorials & commemoration

Unknown.

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• A. Young, attending for the Treasury, held that the gas had most probably been ignited against the air current on the gauze of a securely locked Davy lamp - the body of a boy named Baines with such a lamp was found at the very spot the engineers and the inspector fixed as the seat of ignition. (uncertain) ¹

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• The inquest jury found that a sudden outburst of gas took place in the westerly wide works and was ignited between the entrance of the top cut-through of the westerly up brow and the place where Baines and Armstrong were working, but that there was not sufficient evidence to show how it was ignited. ¹
• A. Young, attending for the Treasury, held that the gas had most probably been ignited against the air current on the gauze of a securely locked Davy lamp - the body of a boy named Baines with such a lamp was found at the very spot the engineers and the inspector fixed as the seat of ignition. (uncertain) ¹
• Forty-eight died: forty-one bodies recovered from the pit and seven of those rescued alive dying afterwards. ^1,2
• The Durham Mining Museum records the cause as an explosion of firedamp, the ignition probably caused by a Davy lamp. ²

Related terminology

Mining terms this disaster is structurally linked to, with the nature of the relationship.

• Brattice (contextual relationship)
  Named in this record’s contributing factors: “…impeded in several places by gobbing up the dirt behind the brattice'. Great laxity in relighting and relocking lamps. Special rules that…”
• Cage (contextual relationship)
  Named twice in this record, first in the narrative: “…up from an inspection that had shown nothing wrong. The downcast cage was jammed by the blast and had to be repaired before he could go…”
• Guibal Fan (contextual relationship)
  Named in this record’s narrative: “…longwall, with locked safety lamps and blasting forbidden; a 46-foot Guibal fan was passing nearly eighty thousand cubic feet of air a minute. The…”
• Outburst (contextual relationship)
  Named 5 times in this record, first in the summary: “…seventy-three fatherless children. The inquest jury found a sudden outburst of gas caused by weighting of the roof, but could not say how it was…”
• Putter (contextual relationship)
  Named in this record’s investigation: “…body was recognised by a widow who knew her husband's red flannel drawers and clogs. The main inquest opened before Coroner Baker on 24…”

Sources

1. (secondary) Abram Colliery Explosion – Wigan – 1881 — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (secondary) Colliery Disaster: Abram, 19th December 1881 (Abram Coal Co.) — Durham Mining Museum

Record created: 17 September 2026 · Last researched: 20 September 2026