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.
6 disasters in the 1800s, of 505.
| Disaster | Date | Type | Region | Fatalities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hebburn Colliery Explosion, 1805 A firedamp explosion at Hebburn Colliery on 21 October 1805 killed between 32 and 35 men and boys, leaving five widows and eighty-one orphaned children — a tragedy that directly inspired Newcastle physician Dr. Thomas Trotter's pioneering pamphlet on preventing mine gas explosions. |
21 October 1805 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | — |
| Fenton Park Colliery explosion Ten men were about to begin the day’s work in one of the Fenton Park pits when firedamp exploded. Seven were killed; the other three were got out alive by the colliery company. Six men had died in the same pit from the same cause within the previous twelve months. |
1806 | Explosion | Staffordshire | 7 |
| Mostyn Colliery explosions, 1806 Two firedamp explosions at Mostyn Colliery on the Dee estuary in Flintshire in 1806 killed thirty-six men between them, by the most widely repeated count. The Coal Mining History Resource Centre's list reads the same record differently: thirty-six in the first explosion and about thirty more in the second. A fire in 1807 and another explosion in 1809 followed at the same colliery. |
1806 | Explosion | Flintshire | 36 |
| Mostyn Colliery Fire, 1807 Twenty-six men died at Mostyn Colliery, Flintshire, in April 1807. Wikipedia's account of the colliery, citing a period notice, calls it a fire; the Durham Mining Museum's disaster record gives the cause as an explosion. Several families lost more than one member. Taken with the explosion of March 1809, the two killed fifty men between them, made twenty-six widows and left sixty-six children fatherless. |
April 1807 | Fire | Flintshire | 26 |
| Harraton Colliery explosion, 1808 A firedamp explosion at Harraton Colliery's Row Pit on 29 November 1808 killed at least four men, including the overman, and left fourteen burnt, some fatally, after a party carrying a lit torch through old workings strayed near a pair of leaking dams; a second explosion during the rescue attempt killed the overman and two companions. |
29 November 1808 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | 4 |
| Mostyn Colliery Explosion, 1809 An explosion at Mostyn Colliery, Flintshire, on 10 March 1809 killed twenty-two men — the second disaster at the pit in under two years, after the twenty-six deaths of April 1807. The Durham Mining Museum records the date and the toll and carries a memorial entry; no account of the explosion itself, and no names, have been traced. |
10 March 1809 | Explosion | Flintshire | 22 |