MineArchiveDisasters
Explosions, floods, collapses and other major incidents at UK mines — including significant post-closure incidents in abandoned workings. Each record is researched to the same standard as a mine or terminology entry, not just a casualty count.
2 disasters in the 1790s, of 505.
| Disaster | Date | Type | Region | Fatalities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sheriff Hill Colliery explosion, 1793 On 27 December 1793 an explosion in the Hope Pit at Sheriff Hill Colliery, on Gateshead Fell, killed fourteen people, the first of the colliery's recorded disasters. Almost nothing else about it survives: John Sykes's Local Records gave it a single sentence, and only four of the dead are known by name, from their burials at Lamesley church a week later. |
27 December 1793 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | 14 |
| Harraton Colliery explosion, 1794 An explosion at Harraton Colliery on 11 June 1794 killed 28 men and boys, recorded in the Chester-le-Street parish burial register rather than in any surviving inquest or inspector's account — one of the earliest well-documented mass-fatality colliery explosions in the Durham coalfield. |
11 June 1794 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | 28 |