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.
46 disasters in the 1860s, of 505.
| Disaster | Date | Type | Region | Fatalities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burradon Colliery Explosion Seventy-six men and boys were killed at Burradon Colliery on the afternoon of Friday 2 March 1860. A first, smaller explosion in the southern workings sent the boys running for the shaft; twenty minutes later, as the overman William Kirkley led a party back in, a far larger one blew debris clean out of the shaft. Twenty-five men and boys were found together three hundred yards in, thirteen of them hand in hand, all dead of suffocation. The inquest ran to 18 April and failed to reach a conclusive verdict. |
2 March 1860 | Explosion | Northumberland | 76 |
| Black Vein Colliery explosion, 1860 At about 9.30 a.m. on Saturday 1 December 1860 firedamp exploded in the fourth east level of the Black Vein Pit at Risca. The blast brought down great falls that cut off the ventilation, and most of the victims were killed by the afterdamp trapped behind them. More than 140 men and boys died, the worst British mining disaster recorded to that date, and the last body was not brought out until February 1861. The inquest jury found the gas had been given off suddenly in a group of stalls but could not say how it was fired; the company was wound up. |
1 December 1860 | Explosion | Caerphilly | 146 |
| Brereton Colliery Explosion Seven men and boys were killed by an explosion of firedamp in one of the shafts of the Brereton collieries near Rugeley on 6 February 1861. A fault had been struck, water had flooded the lower seams and had risen far enough, a few days earlier, to cut the connection between the two shafts and so end the ventilation of the sump. The managers knew it and did nothing. Gas gathered under the scaffold covering the sump, escaped as dirt was cleared from it and fired at a workman's candle. Two men were found in the sump and five more, suffocated by afterdamp, in the workings near the shaft. The colliery had no artificial ventilation of any kind. |
6 February 1861 | Explosion | Staffordshire | 7 |
| Linnyshaw Colliery Explosion, 1861 An explosion in the Rams mine at Linnyshaw Colliery, Worsley, killed nine colliers; the coroner could find no evidence of how the gas had been ignited. |
27 February 1861 | Explosion | Greater Manchester | 9 |
| Blaengwawr Colliery Explosion, 1861 Firedamp exploded in the four-feet workings of Blaengwawr Colliery at Aberaman at about twenty past seven on the morning of Friday 8 March 1861, killing thirteen men and boys and seriously injuring seven more. Between 250 and 300 were underground. The inquest found the gas had accumulated because a ventilation door between two cross-headings had been left open by a person unknown, and asked that safety lamps be used throughout the colliery as the Government Inspector had already recommended. |
8 March 1861 | Explosion | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 13 |
| Nash and Sprinkle Colliery shaft accident Three men were killed at Nash and Sprinkle Colliery, Haverfordwest, when a counterbalanced bucket, descended out of sequence and without its counterweight, fell to the bottom of the shaft. |
25 March 1861 | Winding / Shaft Accident | Pembrokeshire | 3 |
| Clay Cross Colliery inundation, 1861 About three in the afternoon of 11 June 1861 a Clay Cross miner saw water oozing in his stall. The warning went round by way of the deputy's son and reached the deputy two hours later, just as a torrent of black shale water from the old No. 1 workings broke in. Most men got out, the last swimming to the chain; twenty-three did not. The plans had shown a forty-yard barrier of coal that had in fact been worked away, and it took twenty-two days to reach the dead. |
11 June 1861 | Flooding / Inundation | Derbyshire | 23 |
| Hartley Colliery disaster, 1862 The cast-iron beam of New Hartley Colliery's pumping engine fractured and fell down the mine's single shaft during a shift changeover, blocking the only way in or out and sealing 204 men and boys underground, all of whom died of suffocation over the following days despite a sustained rescue effort. The disaster's central lesson — that a mine with only one shaft has no way out if that shaft fails — led directly to a change in the law within months. |
16 January 1862 | Winding / Shaft Accident | Northumberland | 204 |
| Bryngwiog Mine inrush, 1862 Sixteen men drowned when Bryngwiog Mine, on Halkyn Mountain, broke into the flooded old workings of the abandoned Hendre Mine and filled with water within minutes — one of the worst disasters in the district's lead-mining history. |
February 1862 | Flooding / Inundation | Flintshire | 16 |
| Gethin Colliery explosion, 1862 Gas ignited at a naked flame in the No. 19 heading of Gethin's Lower pit on 19 February 1862, killing 47 men and boys. The inquest found the ventilation deficient and returned a verdict of manslaughter against the manager; a grand jury then found no case to answer. |
19 February 1862 | Explosion | Merthyr Tydfil | 47 |
| Bryngwiog Lead Mine Inundation, 1862 On Saturday 22 February 1862, water from old workings broke into the Bryngwiog lead mine on Halkyn Mountain in Flintshire and sixteen men were drowned. The dead came from villages scattered across the mountain — Moel-y-Crio, Lixwm, Rhewl, Rhesycae, Foel, Llaneurgain and Cilcen. |
22 February 1862 | Flooding / Inundation | Flintshire | 16 |
| Old Castle Colliery inrush, 1862 On 3 July 1862 water from the old workings of the adjacent Bres colliery broke into Old Castle Colliery, Llanelli, drowning four men in the Bushy seam and two in the Golden Vein above. Sixty or more escaped up a second shaft that had been sunk only shortly before, after the Hartley disaster. |
3 July 1862 | Flooding / Inundation | Carmarthenshire | 6 |
| Walker Colliery explosion, 1862 Word reached Newcastle on the morning of 22 November 1862 that Walker Colliery had exploded and that sixteen of the people working in it -- fourteen men and two boys -- were dead. The pit belonged to the Corporation of Newcastle and was worked under lease. Among the dead were two pairs of brothers, and several of the men left widows with young families; some were buried in Christ Church churchyard at Walker. |
22 November 1862 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | 16 |
| Coxlodge Colliery explosion, 1863 An explosion of firedamp at the Bower pit of Coxlodge Colliery, north of Newcastle, on 6 March 1863 killed nineteen men by Wikipedia's account and twenty-two by the Durham Mining Museum's. The museum records the ignition as caused by naked lights. The colliery, developed by Matthew Bell and Charles Brandling about 1810, closed in 1894 and its men went to other pits nearby. |
6 March 1863 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | 19 |
| Botallack Mine shaft accident The chain hauling a man-carriage up the Boscawen Diagonal Shaft broke; the carriage ran back out of control and struck timber at the bottom, killing all nine men and boys aboard. |
18 April 1863 | Winding / Shaft Accident | Cornwall | 9 |
| Auckland Park Colliery Shaft Accident, 1863 Four sinkers were killed at the South Pit of Auckland Park Colliery on 12 September 1863 when the half cradle they were working from overbalanced. Seven men were on it, connecting cast-iron pipes to the tubbing; several went to one side to lift a heavy pipe, their weight tipped the cradle, and four of them fell about 51 fathoms into five feet of water at the bottom of the shaft. The cradle swung back level and the other three were unhurt. |
12 September 1863 | Winding / Shaft Accident | County Durham | 4 |
| Califat Colliery Inundation, 1863 In October 1863 water from the old workings of the Limby Hall Colliery burst into the Califat mine in Swannington, Leicestershire, and three men were killed: Thomas Bird, a pit deputy, Henry Clements and Jeremiah Rose. A memorial to them stands near the Alabama engine house complex on the mine site. |
October 1863 | Flooding / Inundation | Leicestershire | 3 |
| Morfa Colliery explosion, 1863 Shortly after 10 a.m. on Saturday 17 October 1863 firedamp exploded in the western workings of Morfa Colliery at Taibach, killing about forty of the forty-three men and boys in the affected heading, most by chokedamp. Heavy falls delayed the recovery until the end of November. The Inspector thought gas had gathered in the goaf after falls disturbed the ventilation, but could not say how it fired; in the weeks before, the men had reported ghostly omens. |
17 October 1863 | Explosion | Neath Port Talbot | 40 |
| Wynnstay Colliery Explosion (1863) A fireman firing a shot in an upbrow ignited accumulated gas, killing thirteen men and boys and injuring six more -- the first of three fatal explosions to strike this colliery within a decade. |
9 December 1863 | Explosion | Wrexham | 13 |
| Gin Pit explosion, 1863 A firedamp explosion at Gin Pit, Maesteg on the Saturday after Christmas Day 1863 killed fourteen men and boys — the most serious mining accident in the Maesteg district — after the pit went unexamined for almost 36 hours and a young, inexperienced fireman failed to inspect it before the shift began. |
26 December 1863 | Explosion | Bridgend | 14 |
| Glyn Pits explosion, 1864 A firedamp explosion in the Rock Vein coal at Glyn Pits, Pontypool killed four — three men and a boy haulier — on 1 June 1864, after both ventilation doors on the heading were left open, cutting off the air to the face. |
1 June 1864 | Explosion | Torfaen | 4 |
| Glyn Pits roof fall, 1864 A collier and a haulier boy were killed at Glyn Pits, Pontypool on 11 August 1864 when a loaded tram, upset into a stall at the intersection with a heading, knocked out the timbers and brought down the roof — two months after the colliery's fatal firedamp explosion of the same year. |
11 August 1864 | Collapse / Roof Fall | Torfaen | 2 |
| Shocking Pit Accident at Frizington (1864) A temporary scaffold erected at the mouth of the Crossgill iron-ore pit collapsed, dropping three men to their deaths while three others narrowly escaped. |
10 December 1864 | Surface / Tip Failure | Cumbria | 3 |
| Leeswood Main (Flue Pit) Inundation, 1864 On the morning of 15 December 1864 water from the pit's own flooded old workings broke into the south side of the Flue Pit at Leeswood and drowned eight, among them Owen Jones, a boy of ten years and one month. A chartermaster, John Pierce, was killed during the recovery. The coroner's jury returned manslaughter against all three owners; the grand jury at the Flintshire Assizes found no bill, and the manager was fined five pounds for failing to bore ahead. |
15 December 1864 | Flooding / Inundation | Flintshire | 9 |
| Clay Cross Colliery accident of 1865 A firedamp explosion in the Black Shale coal of Clay Cross Colliery's No. 4 Pit killed eight men on 3 May 1865; the Inspector traced the gas to a fissure in the stall floor that ordinary ventilation could not dilute, ignited by a naked light. |
3 May 1865 | Explosion | Derbyshire | 8 |
| Bedwellty Pits Explosion, 1865 An explosion at the No. 1 pit of Bedwellty Pits near Tredegar on 16 June 1865 killed twenty-seven miners, six of them boys under sixteen. It was reported to the country in the Illustrated London News, which printed engravings both of the colliery and of the colliers' funeral. |
16 June 1865 | Explosion | Blaenau Gwent | 27 |
| Wylam Colliery Boiler Explosion, 1865 A boiler explosion at Wylam Colliery killed three workers, including a 13-year-old boy, and was reported at the time in the local press. |
27 October 1865 | Machinery | Northumberland | 3 |
| Gethin Colliery explosion, 1865 Three years and ten months after the Lower pit killed 47 men, Gethin's Upper pit exploded on 20 December 1865 and killed 34 more. John Moody, the manager held responsible for the first explosion and never tried for it, was found culpably negligent again — and acquitted again. |
20 December 1865 | Explosion | Merthyr Tydfil | 34 |
| Pelton Colliery tubs accident, 1866 At the end of their shift on 12 January 1866 a group of boys at Pelton Colliery rode out on a set of laden tubs, against the colliery's rules, and collided with a runaway set from a branch. Five, aged 12 to 17, were killed and others injured. |
12 January 1866 | Haulage / Transport | County Durham | 5 |
| Cwmbran Colliery scalding, 1866 At about half past two in the morning of 26 April 1866 a haulier bringing trams along the main horse road at Cwmbran Colliery came past the underground boilers too fast. The trams flew off the plates and knocked down the upright pipe carrying the cock used to blow the boilers through, and live steam poured out so fiercely that none of the three men there escaped. The Inspector had double cocks fitted afterwards. |
26 April 1866 | Machinery | Torfaen | 3 |
| Garswood Park Colliery explosion, 1866 A shot fired in Richard Swift's working place in the Little Delf mine at David Bromilow's Garswood Park Colliery, Ashton-in-Makerfield, ignited firedamp on 4 May 1866. Between a hundred and twenty and a hundred and eighty people were underground; twelve were killed at once and four of those brought out alive died afterwards. Richard Swift himself, his brothers Peter and William, and John Swift are all on the roll of the dead; so are a boy of eleven and two of twelve. |
4 May 1866 | Explosion | Merseyside | 16 |
| Pelton Colliery explosion, 1866 Twenty-four men and boys died at Pelton Colliery near Chester-le-Street on 31 October 1866 in an explosion of firedamp which the Durham Mining Museum records as ignited by a safety lamp. It was the second disaster at the pit that year: five had been killed by tubs in January. |
31 October 1866 | Explosion | County Durham | 24 |
| Oaks Colliery explosion, 1866 Two explosions on successive days at Oaks Colliery killed 388 men and boys — 361 miners and 27 rescuers — and for nearly fifty years it was the worst mining disaster in English history. |
12-13 December 1866 | Explosion | South Yorkshire | 388 |
| Willington Colliery Boiler Explosion, 1867 A boiler exploded at Willington Colliery on 2 January 1867 and killed three of those working at the surface: George Farnaby, a fireman of eighteen, George Young, a screenman of seventeen, and George Webster, a screen boy of eleven. All three deaths were at the pit bank rather than underground. |
2 January 1867 | Machinery | County Durham | 3 |
| Garswood Park Colliery explosion, 1867 Fifteen months after the first explosion, the Little Delf mine at Garswood Park blew again about noon on 20 August 1867, killing fourteen — everyone at work in the top level. Among them was Joseph Topping, the sixty-four-year-old fireman who had survived 1866 and who had been seen a few minutes before going to fire a shot for the collier Henry Winstanley. Peter Higson's own test in the workings afterwards showed the place foul within ten minutes of the brattice coming down. |
20 August 1867 | Explosion | Merseyside | 14 |
| Ferndale Colliery explosion, 1867 Two consecutive explosions at Ferndale Colliery's No.1 pit killed 178 men and boys on 8 November 1867, after a gas accumulation the fireman had already warned the manager about ignited from a naked light — one of the worst disasters in Welsh mining history. |
8 November 1867 | Explosion | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 178 |
| Bwllfa Colliery Fire (1867) A ventilation-system fire at Bwllfa Colliery filled an underground drift with smoke during a shift change on 27 December 1867, killing five of the eleven men working there. |
27 December 1867 | Fire | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 5 |
| Wynnstay Colliery Explosion (1868) An explosion following the replacement of a ventilation door with a brick stopping killed ten men -- the second of three fatal explosions to strike this colliery within a decade. |
30 September 1868 | Explosion | Wrexham | 10 |
| Clandown Colliery Gunpowder Explosion (1868) Two colliers were fatally injured by a gunpowder explosion caused by misusing blasting powder meant only for the roof, on coal itself. |
27 November 1868 | Explosion | Somerset | 2 |
| Queen Pit Explosion, 1868 An explosion at the Queen Pit, part of the Haydock Collieries complex, killed around two dozen men and boys after a blown-out shot ignited accumulated firedamp in an area with damaged ventilation cloth. |
30 December 1868 | Explosion | Lancashire | 26 |
| Fforchaman Colliery explosion A collier at Fforchaman bored a hole and charged it with powder on the first morning back after an idle day, in a pit where blasting was prohibited under any circumstances. He had been refused permission to use powder a few days before and was cautioned not to fire the shot. He fired it, and the firedamp explosion killed him and two others and burned eleven more. |
5 January 1869 | Explosion | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 3 |
| Llanerch Colliery Explosion, 1869 At about half past eight on the night of Tuesday 25 May 1869, firedamp exploded in the Sinking Pit at Cwmnantddu — the colliery later known as Llanerch — killing all seven men who were making roads in the deep, some 700 to 800 yards from the shaft bottom. The workings were generally supposed to be free of gas and, once tested with a safety lamp, were worked with open lights. Twenty-one years later the same colliery, still using naked lights, killed 176. |
25 May 1869 | Explosion | Torfaen | 7 |
| Ferndale Colliery explosion, 1869 A second major explosion at Ferndale Colliery, in the fiery Four Foot Seam, killed 53 men and boys on 10 June 1869, less than two years after the pit's 1867 disaster. |
10 June 1869 | Explosion | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 53 |
| Queen Pit Explosion, 1869 A second, much larger explosion at Haydock's Queen Pit, less than seven months after the December 1868 explosion at the same pit, killed 56-57 men and boys after a shot ignited firedamp released by a roof fall in a working known as Pilkington's place. |
21 July 1869 | Explosion | Lancashire | 57 |
| Hendreforgan Colliery Explosion, 1869 A firedamp explosion shortly after thirteen men and boys started work killed six of them, the youngest an eleven-year-old door-boy. The pit was worked with open lamps and poorly ventilated, and a change to the airways days before had left three workings on one air current. The inquest jury asked the coroner to reprimand the owner, Alexander Bain, for putting the colliery in incompetent hands. |
11 November 1869 | Explosion | Neath Port Talbot | 6 |
| Low Hall Colliery explosion, 1869 About four in the afternoon of Monday 15 November 1869 a blown-out shot fired gas in the Six Feet seam of the Moss Hall Coal Company's No. 5 pit at Platt Bridge near Wigan. Twenty-seven died. The coal caught fire, and with no other water to hand the owners tapped the Liverpool Corporation's Rivington aqueduct, which ran within a few yards of the pit, and drowned the mine. Weeks passed before all the bodies could be recovered and the inquest could not conclude until the water was out. |
15 November 1869 | Explosion | Greater Manchester | 27 |