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.
33 disasters in the 1850s, of 505.
| Disaster | Date | Type | Region | Fatalities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Houghton Colliery explosion, 1850 Clouds of coal dust thrown up the shaft at six in the morning of Monday 11 November 1850 were the first sign that Houghton Pit had exploded. Twenty-seven men and boys were killed, most of them by afterdamp. Wives and parents crowded the pit heap in their thousands while the search went on, and the bodies and survivors were not drawn up until three in the afternoon. The inquest at the White Lion Hotel ended in a verdict of negligence over the exposure of a naked light, though the jury could not say by whom. |
11 November 1850 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | 27 |
| Morfa Colliery explosion An explosion of gas at Vivian and Son's Morfa pit near Taibach on 11 December 1850 injured around 30 men and eventually killed six, the earliest of the four disasters recorded at Morfa Colliery. |
11 December 1850 | Explosion | Neath Port Talbot | 6 |
| Middle Duffryn Colliery explosion, 1850 Between three and four in the afternoon of 12 December 1850 a fall of roof in No. 4 heading of Middle Duffryn Colliery released gas that fired at the candle of the fireman, Henry Jenkins, who was cutting a new wind-way to keep the air course open. The blast killed men underground and a sawyer at the pit top, and more died of their burns over the following week. The number of dead is given as eight or thirteen. |
12 December 1850 | Explosion | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 8 |
| Kingswood Colliery boiler explosion, 1851 On 7 June 1851 the steam boiler at the Starve-all coalpit at St George, worked by George Brain and Co. in the Kingswood coalfield, exploded and scalded eight men to death. Among them were the engineer, John Burchell, and his two sons. The contemporary verdict on Burchell was harsh: had he lived, it was said, he would have been tried for manslaughter, as one of the victims of his own recklessness. |
7 June 1851 | Machinery | Bristol | 8 |
| Ubberley Colliery explosion, 1851 Early on Monday morning seven men and boys walked into the south level of the Sampson pits at Ubberley behind the butty Ralph Hancock, who carried the only safety lamp; the rest had candles. Three hundred yards in, the firedamp fired and all seven died. Hancock had handed in his party's lamps the Friday before, satisfied the pit was clear. Six men on the north side, who had shut the doors behind them, survived. The coroner told the jury that no inspector had ever visited the district and called the new Act, with its four inspectors for the whole kingdom, ridiculous. |
18 August 1851 | Explosion | Staffordshire | 7 |
| Werfa Colliery shaft accident, 1851 At seven in the morning on Thursday 4 September 1851 the chain snapped in the balance pit at Werfa Colliery above Aberdare, and both cages fell down the shaft, 180 feet. Eleven men and boys were in the descending cage and two or three in the ascending one. Word spread quickly through the neighbourhood, but the waiting crowd soon learned that every man had been killed instantly: fourteen by Welsh Coal Mines' count, sixteen by the NMRS. |
4 September 1851 | Winding / Shaft Accident | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 14 |
| Warren Vale Colliery explosion, 1851 Warren Vale Colliery near Rawmarsh had been in production barely a year when it exploded on the morning of Saturday 20 December 1851. Fifty-one or fifty-two men and boys were killed, twenty-four of them aged sixteen or under, some of them fathers and sons working side by side. The blast threw two loaded corves up the shaft and wrecked the headgear, so that rescuers could not get down until half past nine. The coroner returned a verdict of accidental death and used his summing up to complain that the country had only four mines inspectors. |
20 December 1851 | Explosion | South Yorkshire | 52 |
| Hebburn Colliery Explosion, 1852 A firedamp explosion at Hebburn Colliery on 6 May 1852 killed 22 men and boys after a single 37-yard bord became fouled with gas when a ventilation door was left neglected. |
6 May 1852 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | — |
| Middle Duffryn Colliery Explosion, 1852 Ninety-two men and boys went down Middle Duffryn Colliery on the morning of Monday 10 May 1852. Shortly before nine o'clock a fall in the deep heading released gas which exploded; sixty-four died and twenty-eight came out alive. Fifty-five were killed in the explosion and its afterdamp, and nine more died escaping when the platform they had gathered on in the shaft gave way. It was the worst disaster in the Cynon valley to that date. |
10 May 1852 | Explosion | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 64 |
| Gwendraeth Colliery Inundation At about ten o'clock on the night of Monday 10 May 1852, water burst into Daniel Watney's Gwendraeth Colliery at Pontyberem, Carmarthenshire, and drowned 26 of the 27 men and boys working the night shift. Only David Evans, at the shaft bottom when the water arrived, got out alive. The dead ranged in age from 10 to 50 and included several sets of brothers and at least one father and son. Recovery of the bodies took about eighteen months. The inquest returned accidental death by drowning from an inundation of unknown cause. |
10 May 1852 | Flooding / Inundation | Carmarthenshire | 26 |
| Bryndu Colliery explosion, 1852 One Thursday morning in November 1852 three men and a youth at Bryndu Colliery, Kenfig Hill, went into their workings with candles before the fireman had examined them with a safety lamp for firedamp gathered in the night. The gas exploded at once and killed all four, the youngest a boy of twelve. |
November 1852 | Explosion | Bridgend | 4 |
| Hemingfield Colliery Explosion, 1852 An underground explosion at Earl Fitzwilliam's Hemingfield Colliery, near Elsecar, at 1.30 pm on 22 December 1852 killed ten miners and injured twelve. The inquiry praised Benjamin Biram's fan ventilation, which had divided the workings into two districts and is thought to have kept the toll from being worse. |
22 December 1852 | Explosion | South Yorkshire | 10 |
| Black Vein Colliery explosion, 1853 In March 1853 firedamp exploded at the entrance to No. 13 in the Black Vein Pit at Risca, about half a mile from the pit bottom. Seven were killed at once, among them boys of twelve and thirteen, and three more men died later of their injuries, ten in all. The inquest blamed one of the injured men for using a naked candle, and a ventilation door left open. It was one of the explosions that made the colliery known as the death pit. |
March 1853 | Explosion | Caerphilly | 10 |
| Bryndu Colliery explosion, 1853 Two days before Christmas 1853 John Williams, a collier of forty-one, went against orders into a part of Bryndu Colliery known to be gassy. His naked light fired the gas, and the explosion killed him, his eleven-year-old son Rees and three others. It was the colliery's second fatal explosion at a naked light in thirteen months. |
23 December 1853 | Explosion | Bridgend | 5 |
| Lundhill Colliery explosion, 1854 On 22 August 1854, as the Lundhill shaft near Barnsley was being sunk towards the Barnsley thick coal, firedamp that had often been seen issuing from a drainage borehole in the shaft bottom came out in force and exploded at the sinkers' candles, killing six. The owners had supplied a ventilating engine, air pipes and safety lamps, but the agent and contractor had not used them and were absent that morning. Two inquests cleared the owners. |
22 August 1854 | Explosion | South Yorkshire | 6 |
| Ram Hill Colliery Rope Failure (1855) A jointed winding rope broke while drawing two colliers up No. 2 Ram Hill Pit, killing both, and drew a government inspector's outright condemnation of the practice. |
5 April 1855 | Winding / Shaft Accident | Gloucestershire | 2 |
| Cwmneol Colliery overwind, 1855 On 28 November 1855 the cage carrying eight men up Cwmneol Colliery's shaft at Cwmaman overshot the bank, crashed into the headgear and broke the rope, and the cage and its occupants fell 240 yards to the pit bottom. The young engine driver was tried for manslaughter and acquitted. |
28 November 1855 | Winding / Shaft Accident | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 8 |
| Oakley pit explosion, 1856 On the forenoon of Monday 21 January 1856 firedamp exploded beneath a scaffold in a newly sunk pit at the Forth Iron Works, Oakley, near Dunfermline. The three colliers working on it to open an ironstone seam were killed, and the blast threw missiles out of the shaft that killed Marion Drysdale, a fifteen-year-old at the pit mouth. The Inspector blamed an unventilated space under a scaffold whose planks had not been made airtight. |
21 January 1856 | Explosion | Fife | 4 |
| Ynisdavid Colliery Explosion, 1856 An explosion of gas in the Big Vein at Ynisdavid Colliery, Cwmavon, on 24 May 1856 killed twelve colliers. Eight were burnt and mutilated and four died of the effects of gas and their injuries; they were found lying within a short distance of one another. The ground was known to be dangerous, safety lamps only were allowed, and two large Struvé ventilators were being erected but were not yet finished. |
24 May 1856 | Explosion | Neath Port Talbot | 12 |
| Ynisdavid Colliery Explosion, Cwmavon, 1856 A firedamp explosion in the Big Vein, deep in the workings, killed nine men and three boys; the colliery's own agent led the rescue and recovery, recorded in detailed inquest testimony. |
24 May 1856 | Explosion | Neath Port Talbot | 12 |
| Old Coal Pit Explosion, Coalbrookdale (1856) An explosion caused by neglected ventilation rules at the Old Coal Pit, Coalbrookdale, killed eleven men and boys, including two who died attempting a rescue. |
3 July 1856 | Explosion | Shropshire | 11 |
| Cymmer Colliery Explosion, 1856 On the morning of 15 July 1856, 160 men and boys went down the Old Pit at Cymmer Colliery near Porth for the six o'clock shift. A gas explosion near the mine entrance trapped those already deeper in; 114 died, most of them of afterdamp. Forty-nine were boys under sixteen, fifteen of them under twelve. The mine's manager and four officials were charged with manslaughter and all were acquitted. |
15 July 1856 | Explosion | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 114 |
| Lundhill Colliery explosion Firedamp exploded twenty minutes after the men had eaten their dinner underground, killing 189 of the 200 below. The pit then caught fire, and the only way to put it out was to divert a stream into the workings, which left the bodies where they lay for months. |
19 February 1857 | Explosion | South Yorkshire | 189 |
| Talwrn Colliery explosion, 1857 At nine on the morning of Friday 21 August 1857 firedamp exploded on the north side of the No. 2 pit at Talwrn Colliery, Coedpoeth, where twenty-four men were at work. The shock killed a horse in the connected No. 3 pit. Four men were found dead, suffocated some thirty yards from where they worked, and eight more were burnt. The inquest found accident, but H.M. Inspector Peter Higson told it the pit was foul with gas from bad ventilation. |
21 August 1857 | Explosion | Wrexham | 4 |
| Ripley Colliery explosion, 1857 A nine-foot heading driven 160 yards to the rise at Ripley Colliery was ventilated by a brick-and-lime brattice up its middle. The under-viewer had a hole broken through the brattice a hundred yards from the face and never saw that a door was fixed in it, so the hundred yards of heading beyond filled with gas. It exploded twice in October 1857 and killed six men, four of them on the 10th with George Gyte dying of the first explosion on the 5th. The inspector, John Hedley, prosecuted the under-viewer and the deputy and the magistrates convicted both. |
5 and 10 October 1857 | Explosion | Derbyshire | 6 |
| Bryndu Colliery explosion, 1858 At about five in the afternoon on 27 or 28 May 1858 firedamp exploded in the West Nine Feet heading of Bryndu Colliery, Kenfig Hill, killing eleven or twelve men, the colliery's worst disaster and its third fatal explosion in six years. The coal there was so hard it had to be blasted, and the fireman, Jenkin Lewis, who was among the dead, is believed to have unlocked his safety lamp to light a fuse. |
May 1858 | Explosion | Bridgend | 12 |
| Page Bank Colliery shaft fire, 1858 At eight in the morning on 30 September 1858 the back overman at Page Bank, Thomas Kellet, was knocked from the top of the cage by something falling in the shaft and fell to the bottom. Fire followed at the shaft, and ten people died. Fire engines were called from the surrounding towns to pump river water down the pit while the colliery's own pumping engine was turned on the flames; the inspector thought the case unusual enough to set out the inquest evidence at length in his annual report. |
30 September 1858 | Fire | County Durham | 10 |
| Primrose Colliery Disaster, 1858 On 13 October 1858 the fumes of an engine boiler suffocated fourteen men and boys, and seven horses, underground at the Primrose Colliery near Rhos. The colliery was then owned by Morgan and Lewis, and was afterwards redeveloped as the New Primrose Colliery. |
13 October 1858 | Gas / Asphyxiation | Neath Port Talbot | 14 |
| Morfa Colliery explosion, 1858 An explosion of gas at Morfa Colliery, Taibach, on 25 or 26 November 1858 killed four colliers. Afterwards one man's safety lamp was found with its top off and a homemade key to its lock in his pocket, and none of the lamps was locked, though all had been locked when the shift began. Opening a lamp saved the walk to the lamp room to relight it. |
26 November 1858 | Explosion | Neath Port Talbot | 4 |
| Yew Tree Colliery Explosion, 1858 A firedamp explosion in Yew Tree Colliery's Crombuke mine, caused by a skipped safety inspection, killed 25 men and boys -- the worst mining disaster in Tyldesley's history. |
11 December 1858 | Explosion | Lancashire | 25 |
| Agecroft Colliery shaft accident, 1859 Seven men and boys were drawn against the winding pulley and fell down the shaft at Agecroft Colliery on 4 January 1859, after a shaft-position indicator's signal band slipped loose and the engineman, with no other way to judge the cage's position, relied on hearing the signal bell alone. |
4 January 1859 | Winding / Shaft Accident | Greater Manchester | 7 |
| Bryncoch Colliery inundation, 1859 A few hours into the shift on Wednesday 6 April 1859 water from a large area of old workings broke into the Main Colliery at Bryncoch, near Neath, with about eighty men and boys underground. More than fifty ran before the flood to the shaft; twenty-six did not get out, among them the overman, who was washed away trying to warn them. Pumping took five or six months, and the first body was not recovered until 23 September; four were never found. |
6 April 1859 | Flooding / Inundation | Neath Port Talbot | 26 |
| Far Green Colliery shaft accident, 1859 An ascending cage carrying sixteen men and boys overwound fifty feet past its normal stopping point and struck the headgear pulley at Far Green Colliery on 5 November 1859, after the winding engineman was briefly distracted; ten died. |
5 November 1859 | Winding / Shaft Accident | Staffordshire | 10 |