Disasters

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.

9 disasters in the 1810s, of 505.

Disaster	Date	Type	Region	Fatalities
Felling Colliery explosion, 1812 At about half past eleven on the morning of Monday 25 May 1812 a firedamp explosion tore through Felling Colliery near Gateshead, killing 92 men and boys of the 128 below ground. The ground shook for half a mile and the report was heard four miles off. Thirty-three men were brought out alive by a horse-whim worked by hand, three of whom later died; everyone else was left below. A second explosion drove back the one rescue party that got down, and the pit was sealed for six weeks to smother the fire. Recovery of the bodies took from July to September. The local curate's pamphlet on the disaster helped found the Sunderland Society, out of which came the Geordie and Davy safety lamps.	25 May 1812	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	92
Felling Colliery explosion, 1813 At half past one on the morning of 24 December 1813 firedamp exploded again at Felling Colliery, killing nine men and thirteen boys and twelve horses, all of them in the headways near William Pit, the upcast. Those working in the boards away from it survived. The gas was supposed to have fired at the crane lamp, though other causes were suggested, and a week later fire was found in the waste and the shafts were stopped up again.	24 December 1813	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	22
Hebburn Colliery Explosion, 1814 An explosion at Hebburn Colliery on 12 August 1814 killed the underviewer and ten others while they were adjusting the mine's ventilation, after not allowing enough time for firedamp to clear.	12 August 1814	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	—
Sheriff Hill Colliery explosion, 1815 At four in the morning of 27 June 1815 Sheriff Hill Colliery near Gateshead fired while its viewer, William Foggett, and his brothers George and Robert were down the pit. The blast killed all three, and eight workmen died of the afterdamp, among them the overman Scott, a father and son named Wind and youths of seventeen and eighteen.	27 June 1815	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	11
Sheriff Hill Colliery fire, 1815 On 11 December 1815 the wooden partition that divided Sheriff Hill Colliery's shaft into upcast and downcast caught fire from the coal lamp burning to draw the air up. With the partition gone the ventilation failed. Every effort was made to get the men and horses out, and all were saved but five wastemen, who perished in the workings.	11 December 1815	Fire	Tyne and Wear	5
Leadhills (Minehill) suffocation, 1817 Seven men died in the Leadhills Company's mines on 1 March 1817, poisoned by smoke from an underground engine that had filled the workings with sulphurous gas — four who had gone down early to get their shift over sooner, and three more at the 80 fathom level, two of whom died going to help the others.	1 March 1817	Gas / Asphyxiation	South Lanarkshire	7
Harraton Row Pit Explosion, 1817 At about eleven in the morning on 30 June 1817 the gas in the Row Pit at Harraton Colliery ignited and thirty-eight men and boys were killed. It was among the most violent explosions of its era: the shaft bottom, 82 fathoms down, was blown into the air along with two of the bodies. Ten of the dead were from a single family — a grandfather, his two sons and seven grandsons.	30 June 1817	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	38
Harraton Nova Scotia Pit Chokedamp Deaths, 1817 Two days after the Row Pit explosion killed thirty-eight at Harraton, eight men went down the colliery's Nova Scotia pit to repair shaft damage the blast had done. Chokedamp from the Row Pit had entered the workings. A second party sent to find them was driven back by it, and the eight had to be left to their fate.	2 July 1817	Gas / Asphyxiation	Tyne and Wear	8
Sheriff Hill Colliery Explosion, 1819 On the morning of Tuesday 19 July 1819, after the hewers had left and half an hour before the pit was to finish its day's work, firedamp exploded in Sheriff Hill Colliery on Gateshead Fell and killed two men and thirty-three boys. Had it come an hour later, it was said, a hundred would have died. Contemporary report blamed neglect or mismanagement of the safety lamps. Eighteen of the dead were buried in Gateshead churchyard and fourteen in the chapel yard; three were brothers from Whitehaven whose mother had only just persuaded the colliery to take them back on.	19 July 1819	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	35