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.

13 disasters in the 1830s, of 505.

Disaster	Date	Type	Region	Fatalities
United Hills Mine boiler explosion, 1830 An engine boiler burst at United Hills Mine (later Tywarnhayle Mine), near Porthtowan, killing nine of the thirteen people present.	3 February 1830	Machinery	Cornwall	9
Magpie Mine suffocation of three Maypitt miners Three miners from the neighbouring Maypitt mine suffocated after Magpie miners lit fires underground to smoke them out during a dispute over a shared lead vein — the origin of the mine's 'Widow's Curse' story.	1833	Gas / Asphyxiation	Derbyshire	3
Springwell Colliery Explosion, 1833 An explosion in the B Pit at Springwell Colliery on 9 May 1833 killed forty-seven people instantly. Only nine or ten were adults; the rest were boys, some of them eight years old. The mine had been examined and declared safe that morning, and safety lamps ordered as a precaution when a blower was pricked. Thirty-nine of the dead were still underground the following night.	9 May 1833	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	47
Wallsend Colliery Explosion At about two o'clock on the afternoon of 18 June 1835, an explosion tore through Wallsend Colliery on Tyneside and killed 102 men and boys — the worst of ten separate disasters recorded at a pit already notorious for them. The youngest of the dead was eight. Among them were trappers and putters of eleven, seventeen and nineteen, and whole families were hit: the Applebys lost Henry, a putter of seventeen, and James, a trapper of eleven. Many of the dead lie in unmarked graves in the churchyard of St Peter's, Wallsend.	18 June 1835	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	102
Hetton Downs Pit Explosion, 1836 An explosion in the Downs pit of the Hetton colliery on 28 January 1836 killed twenty and left another man so badly scorched there was little hope for him. The inquest found the cause was a boy failing to keep a ventilation trap door shut — and heard that the men preferred candles to the Davy lamp because candles gave a better light.	28 January 1836	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	20
Blackrod Colliery explosion, 1836 On 6 October 1836 firedamp exploded in Mr Blundell's pit at Blackrod, near Bolton, soon after the fireman, Thomas Challender, had made his inspection and let the men down. The pit was worked with safety lamps, but naked lights were taken in as well. Twelve died, the fireman among them, and five of the dead were women and girls, the youngest ten. Inquests under three coroners returned accidental death.	6 October 1836	Explosion	Greater Manchester	12
Workington Colliery Inundation, 1837 On the evening of 28 July 1837 the sea burst into the workings of Workington Colliery, which had been driven 1,500 yards out under it with only about 150 feet of strata above. The Isabella, Union and Lady pits were submerged and 27 men and boys drowned, along with a comparable number of horses. The danger had been common talk in the town for months, and the owner had been written to about it.	28 July 1837	Flooding / Inundation	Cumbria	27
Springwell Colliery Explosion, 1837 Four years after an explosion killed forty-seven at Springwell, the ventilation had been rebuilt and the pitmen no longer thought the mine fiery. On 6 December 1837 a second explosion in the Hutton seam killed twenty-seven of the twenty-nine men and boys at work in that district. The likeliest cause was a safety lamp dropped across the rolley way and run over.	6 December 1837	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	27
Huskar Pit Flooding, 1838 A thunderstorm burst a stream into the ventilation drift at Huskar Pit as 40 children tried to leave the mine, drowning 26 of them aged 7 to 17 — a disaster whose scale of child deaths directly shaped the Mines and Collieries Act 1842.	4 July 1838	Flooding / Inundation	South Yorkshire	—
Cinder Pits Inundation, 1838 After two days of incessant rain followed by snow, the sky over Waun Afon and the Coity darkened about midday on 28 November 1838 and discharged. The water inundated the works, nearly filled the valley, raised the river by many feet and burst over the embankment protecting the mouth of the Old Level at Blaenavon. Fifteen people in the workings were drowned, five of them children and two of them girls. It was Blaenavon's worst industrial accident.	28 November 1838	Flooding / Inundation	Torfaen	15
William Pit Explosion, 1839 Firedamp that had gone undetected since the previous Saturday exploded when a boy carrying a naked candle followed the overman into workings a mile and a half from the shaft — killing between 21 and 23 men and boys, most from one small stretch of New Houses.	18 February 1839	Explosion	Cumbria	23
St Hilda’s Colliery Explosion On the morning of 28 June 1839 an explosion tore through the western workings of St Hilda’s pit in the middle of South Shields, killing 51 men and boys. Most died not in the blast but of afterdamp. The inquest returned accidental death with a recommendation that working coal mines by candlelight be abandoned in favour of lamps, and a Committee for the Investigation of Accidents in Mines was formed in the town shortly afterwards — its report weighed the merits of the various safety lamps and did much to improve mine safety nationally.	28 June 1839	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	51
Wellsway Colliery shaft accident Twelve men and boys were hooked to the winding rope at the top of Wellsway pit on the morning of 5 November 1839. When their full weight came onto it the rope broke and they fell 756 feet. Only one body was whole enough to be recognised. The rope was nearly new and bore what looked like knife or chisel marks drawn across the fibres, and the inquest found it had been cut by a person or persons unknown.	5 November 1839	Winding / Shaft Accident	Somerset	12