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.
57 disasters in the 1870s, of 505.
| Disaster | Date | Type | Region | Fatalities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fochriw Colliery Winding Accident, 1870 The winding rope detached from its drum at Fochriw Colliery's No. 1 shaft, sending the cages and everyone in them plunging to the bottom and killing five men — the second such accident at the colliery within two months. |
8 January 1870 | Winding / Shaft Accident | Caerphilly | 5 |
| Pendleton Colliery explosion, 1870 At half past ten one morning in February 1870 the fireman Jonathan Chapman fired a shot in the No. 2 level of the Albert mine at Pendleton Colliery. It blew out without bringing down the coal, and flame swept the level, burning everyone working near it. Nine men and boys died, some at home and some in the Salford Royal Dispensary, four of them boys of fourteen to sixteen. The jury blamed the powder flame alone; the Inspector thought firedamp had fed it. |
February 1870 | Explosion | Greater Manchester | 9 |
| Morfa Colliery explosion, 1870 Between six and seven on the morning of 14 February 1870, when 50 or 60 men had gone down Morfa Colliery at Taibach, a terrific explosion near the bottom of the working shaft wrecked the shaft and headgear and killed twenty-nine men and boys. Blasting powder for deepening the shaft was stored there, and the manager blamed it; the jury found firedamp; the Inspector traced the gas to a goaf that had been sealed off months before. |
14 February 1870 | Explosion | Neath Port Talbot | 29 |
| Pendlebury Colliery Explosion, 1870 A roof fall released a large quantity of gas at Pendlebury (Wheatsheaf) Colliery on 27 September 1870, which travelled along the ventilation current and ignited among men working with naked lights, killing six. |
27 September 1870 | Explosion | Greater Manchester | — |
| Abercwmboi Colliery Explosion, 1870 On the night of 8 October 1870 an explosion of firedamp at the ventilating furnace of Abercwmboi (then Abercwmboy) Colliery, Aberdare, killed the overman James Davies and four other men. Gas had been found in the north return about midnight and the two fluemen were found asleep with the furnace fire nearly out; the officials chose to let the fire burn up rather than draw it, and a quarter of an hour after they went towards the Six Feet the pit fired. The coroner's jury at the Boot Hotel, Aberdare, found the fluemen very culpable for letting the fire go so low, a verdict amounting to accidental death. |
8 October 1870 | Explosion | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 5 |
| Parys Mountain boiler explosion, 1870 A large Cornish boiler at the ore-crushing plant exploded during a lunch break, demolishing the building; accounts from the same local research group differ sharply on the death toll, citing either one confirmed death with 8–10 injured, or seven men killed. |
19 October 1870 | Explosion | Anglesey | — |
| Wheatley Hill Colliery inrush, 1871 In January 1871 a place being driven at Wheatley Hill Colliery to drain water from old Thornley workings holed unexpectedly into them, and the water drowned men working there. The coroner's jury found manslaughter against the chief viewer, resident viewer and overman, but the case collapsed at the Durham assizes. |
January 1871 | Flooding / Inundation | County Durham | 5 |
| Leycett Colliery explosion, 1871 A collier named John Crooks fired a shot in the Ten Feet mine of the Independent pit at Leycett without the fireman's leave; the powder blew out of the hole, moved no coal, and fired the gas. The jury held Crooks was not to blame, because the rules did not stop him. The inspector, Thomas Wynne, called Leycett 'the most unfortunate colliery in the district' and blamed the system of driving many levels at once beyond the main air on nothing but pipes and brattice. |
12 January 1871 | Explosion | Staffordshire | 8 |
| Pentre Colliery Explosion, 1871 An explosion on the night shift at Pentre Colliery in the Rhondda on 24 February 1871 killed thirty-eight men and boys. The blast wrecked one side of the headgear, and a rescue party of five was overcome by afterdamp the moment its cage reached the pit bottom; two of the five died and are counted among the dead. |
24 February 1871 | Explosion | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 38 |
| Ince Moss Colliery explosions, 1871 The explosion in the Wigan Nine Feet mine at the Moss Pits, Ince, near Wigan, on 6 September 1871 was, in the inspector's words, the most serious casualty of the year or that he had ever known. Sixty-four people were at work in the mine and six more were sinking the upcast pit below, seventy in all. Sixty-eight bodies were left underground: the rescuers found the mine on fire, a second slight explosion drove them back, and the attempt to recover the dead was given up. |
6 September 1871 | Explosion | Greater Manchester | 70 |
| Seaham Colliery Explosion, 1871 An outburst of gas from the roof of Seaham Colliery's No. 3 pit was ignited during blasting, killing 26 men and boys — nine years before the far larger disaster that would make the colliery's name. |
25 October 1871 | Explosion | County Durham | 26 |
| Bartonholm Colliery explosion, 1871 At about three on Monday morning, 30 October 1871, Thomas McQuade went down No. 3 Bartonholm Pit near Irvine to light the ventilation furnace, the 'cube', which he was said to have neglected the day before. He carried a Davy lamp and a naked one, and twelve miners went with him. At the end of the main roadway a strong blast of firedamp met his open light and exploded. McQuade and the three men behind him were killed; the Hamilton Advertiser counted a fifth. |
30 October 1871 | Explosion | North Ayrshire | 4 |
| Oakwood Colliery explosion, 1872 Just before midnight on Wednesday 10 January 1872 the whole Llynfi valley was shaken by an explosion at Oakwood Colliery near Maesteg. Only eleven men were underground, most of them repairers on the night shift, and all eleven were killed along with six horses. An unlocked lamp was found beside the body of John Lloyd; at the inquest a collier said he had left his work because Caleb Davies meant to fire a shot where gas was known to be, and the jury returned an open verdict on the cause. |
10 January 1872 | Explosion | Bridgend | 11 |
| Littleburn Colliery Shaft Accident, 1872 Two sinkers, Thomas Dove and Henry Kenney, were killed at Littleburn Colliery on 5 February 1872 when the winch rope ran amain — took charge and ran away — and knocked them out of the kibble they were riding, dropping them to the bottom of the shaft. |
5 February 1872 | Winding / Shaft Accident | County Durham | 2 |
| Lovers Lane Colliery explosion, 1872 Twenty-seven men and boys died at John Fletcher's Lovers Lane pit at Atherton on 28 March 1872 when a shot blew out its stemming in the Five Feet mine. The air reached the working faces through six iron pipes of about a foot in area each — six square feet of airway in all, for an average length of forty-one yards — and an escape that had been letting extra air into the workings had been stopped that very morning. Ten of the dead were nineteen or younger; five were twelve or thirteen. |
28 March 1872 | Explosion | Greater Manchester | 27 |
| Leeswood Green Blackdamp Deaths, 1872 Two Leeswood men, Morgan Edwards and Frank Jones, were killed at the Leeswood Green pit on 26 July 1872, the cause of death recorded as choked by blackdamp caused by deficient ventilation. Frank Jones left a wife and a number of children. |
26 July 1872 | Gas / Asphyxiation | Flintshire | 2 |
| Gill Head Colliery fall of stone, 1872 A fall of stone at Gill Head Colliery near Flimby on 17 August 1872 killed two hewers, William Ismay, aged 18, and Andrew Poole, aged 19. It was the worst single accident recorded at a pit that employed fewer than fifty men for most of its life. |
17 August 1872 | Collapse / Roof Fall | Cumbria | 2 |
| Morley Main Colliery explosion, 1872 An explosion of firedamp at Morley Main Colliery, between Dewsbury and Leeds, on 7 October 1872 killed thirty-four people. The Durham Mining Museum records the ignition as caused by a naked light and names the dead; Morley's own histories note that the town's worst mining disaster went publicly unmarked for 140 years. |
7 October 1872 | Explosion | West Yorkshire | 34 |
| Pelsall Hall Colliery inundation, 1872 A little before nine on Thursday 14 November 1872 a collier named Michael Cash, driving a heading at Pelsall Hall Colliery near Walsall, holed into old unrecorded workings full of water. Within minutes the water sealed the deep workings from the shaft. A few men escaped by clinging to the cage; twenty-two men and boys were cut off. When the pit was pumped out, ten were found together in a dry refuge, dead from chokedamp; one body was never recovered. |
14 November 1872 | Flooding / Inundation | West Midlands | 22 |
| Featherstone Main Colliery explosion, 1872 On 2 December 1872 the deputy William Phoenix, examining Featherstone Main Colliery before work, took the top off his lamp and ignited firedamp; he and two boys aged 13 and 14 died. |
2 December 1872 | Explosion | West Yorkshire | 3 |
| Wynnstay Colliery Explosion (1873) Insufficiently bored and improperly rammed shot holes let gas from two shots ignite, killing seven men and boys -- the third of three fatal explosions to strike this colliery within a decade. |
24 April 1873 | Explosion | Wrexham | 7 |
| Eskett Pit Fall of Roof, 1873 Two miners, Thomas Cameron and Peter Hughes, were killed by a single fall of roof at the Eskett iron ore workings on 16 September 1873. The Durham Mining Museum files the accident under Salter & Eskett, with the company given as Fisher and Co., and the local papers reported it as two men killed at Frizington. |
16 September 1873 | Collapse / Roof Fall | Cumbria | 2 |
| Hafod Colliery Explosion (1873) The colliery's own master dataller improperly opened his safety lamp to inspect a ventilation door, igniting an explosion that killed five men. |
11 December 1873 | Explosion | Wrexham | 5 |
| Kilton Mine Kibble Accident, 1873 Two sinkers were killed at Kilton Mine when the kibble carrying them up a sinking shaft struck a bunton and capsized after a shot-firing operation, precipitating them to the bottom just as one of the charges exploded. |
23 December 1873 | Winding / Shaft Accident | North Yorkshire | 2 |
| Rosehall Colliery roof fall, 1874 On 19 January 1874 a large mass of freestone fell without warning from the roof of a longwall face in Rosehall No. 10 pit, Coatbridge, and crushed three colliers working within nine feet of each other: Alexander Mace, his eighteen-year-old son Robert, and Peter Duffy. The Inspector singled it out for its severity, but found no sign that anyone could have foreseen it. |
1874 | Collapse / Roof Fall | North Lanarkshire | 3 |
| Underwood Colliery fire Underwood Colliery was found to be on fire on the Sunday morning of 12 April 1874. Two men went down at about eleven o'clock to save the horses, were warned they would meet firedamp, and went anyway. Neither came back. Two more who followed them were brought out exhausted. The inquest jury found death from choke damp caused by the firing of the woodwork in a stone heading. |
12 April 1874 | Fire | Nottinghamshire | 2 |
| Bwllfa Dare Colliery Sinking Explosion (1874) Two sinkers were killed and a third badly injured when they ignited gas blowers while sinking a new shaft at Bwllfa Dare Colliery, Cwmdare, on 18 May 1874. |
18 May 1874 | Explosion | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 2 |
| Barrow Colliery shaft accident, 1874 Five masons and sinkers drowned when a scaffold platform collapsed and dropped them 30 feet into the flooded sump of a shaft then being sunk for the new Barrow pits at Bryncethin, after a cast-iron crab winch failed. |
26 September 1874 | Winding / Shaft Accident | Bridgend | 5 |
| Rawmarsh Colliery explosion, 1874 At about ten to eight on the morning of 20 November 1874, gas exploded in the No. 7 dip south levels of the Barnsley seam at J. and J. Charlesworth's Rawmarsh Colliery near Rotherham — about 1,400 yards from the shaft, in a pit worked alongside their Warren Vale colliery. Twenty-three men died. The engineers disagreed at the inquest about whether an outburst or a roof fall had driven the gas out, but not about what lit it: the men were working with naked candles. |
20 November 1874 | Explosion | South Yorkshire | 23 |
| Western Colliery sinking explosion, 1874 A gas explosion during the sinking of Western Colliery, at what later became the Wyndham Western complex at Nantymoel, killed five sinkers on 7 December 1874. |
7 December 1874 | Explosion | Bridgend | 5 |
| Cwmorthin fatal accident and mine-status test case A fatal accident at Cwmorthin — nicknamed 'The Slaughterhouse' after 21 workers died there between 1875 and 1893 — led to a test case that reclassified the site as a mine rather than an exempt quarry under new safety law, and the company was wound up soon after. |
1875 | Other | Gwynedd | — |
| Bunker's Hill Colliery Explosion, 1875 About one in the afternoon of 30 April 1875 a shot fired in a heading at Bunker's Hill Colliery near Talke ignited firedamp and killed forty-three men and boys. Everyone underground in that part of the pit died, so the cause had to be reconstructed afterwards. The inspector's report said the explosion was caused by the use of gunpowder and that the reason for the change from wedging to blasting had been simply that the owner could not compete with neighbours who blasted. |
30 April 1875 | Explosion | Staffordshire | 43 |
| Dudley Colliery Explosion, 1875 Two shiftmen, George Clasper and William Davison, were killed by an explosion of gas in the Low Main seam of the Dudley Pit, Cramlington Colliery, on 13 May 1875. They had been sent with naked lights to lay tramway plates in an old gateway whose ventilation was impeded by a fall, and went further in than the deputy had examined. The Inspector of Mines found want of caution and an imperfect grasp of duties on all sides, and that no special rules had been established at the pit. |
13 May 1875 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | 2 |
| New Tredegar Colliery Explosion, 1875 A minor gas explosion at New Tredegar Colliery on 2 December 1875 injured two men. The workings were inspected, found free of gas, and the manager nonetheless ordered that nobody should go down for twenty-four hours. His order was disregarded, the men descended the next morning under the overman's instructions, and at eight o'clock a second explosion killed twenty outright. Two more died later, making twenty-two. |
3 December 1875 | Explosion | Caerphilly | 22 |
| Jamage Colliery explosion, 1876 At about half past four on the afternoon of 5 January 1876 an explosion tore through the Seven Feet Banbury seam of the Jammage pits at Talke, killing all five men working there and blowing the cage at the pit head into the headgear. A stopping had been opened to let material down, cutting off the air, and gas that had gathered for hours was fired by a shot in Daniel Darlington's place. The jury called the pit's discipline very lax and asked for gunpowder to be banned where safety lamps were used. |
5 January 1876 | Explosion | Staffordshire | 5 |
| Birley Vale Colliery Explosion, 1876 Six men died on the morning of 26 June 1876 when colliers carrying naked lights fired gas that had gathered in an exploring heading at Birley Vale Colliery near Sheffield. The men had been using locked safety lamps until two days earlier, when the under-viewer reported the ventilation improved and the manager left the choice of lights to his discretion. Neither he nor the fireman had walked to the end of the heading. The Yorkshire jury returned manslaughter against the fireman. |
26 June 1876 | Explosion | South Yorkshire | 6 |
| Moorgreen Colliery Roof Fall, 1876 A very large fall of roof over the timbering at Barber Walker's Moorgreen pit killed three men working together, a loader of nineteen, a driver of fifteen and a stallman of thirty-three. |
26 June 1876 | Collapse / Roof Fall | Nottinghamshire | 3 |
| Fordell Colliery boiler explosion, 1876 A steam boiler exploded at Fordell Colliery's William Pit near Dunfermline on 30 September 1876, killing four people outright — mostly young women sheltering near the boiler house during a work stoppage — with a possible fifth victim dying later of her injuries. |
30 September 1876 | Explosion | Fife | 4 |
| Cwmtillery Colliery Explosion, 1876 An explosion at Cwmtillery Colliery on 18 December 1876 killed either sixteen or twenty-three men and boys, depending on which account is followed. It was the worst and the last of four underground explosions at the colliery in twenty years. |
18 December 1876 | Explosion | Blaenau Gwent | 23 |
| Stonehill Colliery fire A wall of cannel more than a hundred yards long caught fire 1,200 yards from the shaft at Stonehill Colliery, Farnworth, with about 300 men and boys below. The ventilation carried the smoke inbye onto the men working beyond it. Most of the pit got out; eighteen were suffocated. Two of the dead had turned back — a fireman to warn his workmates, a father to look for his son, who was found beside him. |
23 January 1877 | Fire | Greater Manchester | 18 |
| Home Farm Colliery inundation, 1877 Eight days after a fall of roof in the rise workings of the Ell coal let water in from the sand and gravel above, the roof at Home Farm gave way altogether about six on the morning of 23 January 1877 and water, sand and mud rushed to the two shafts. For a quarter of an hour it ran down one shaft only, and more than sixty men escaped by the other; four colliers at the far end of the workings were cut off, and the stream poured down both shafts for ten hours until the mine was full. An eight-acre hollow opened by the river. The bodies were found in October and November 1878, after the pit was pumped out to resume working, in spaces the sand had not filled, with evidence the men had lived for some time. |
23 January 1877 | Flooding / Inundation | South Lanarkshire | 4 |
| Clandown Colliery Roof Fall (1877) Two colliers, one of them a teenager, were killed together in a single fall of roof. |
5 February 1877 | Collapse / Roof Fall | Somerset | 2 |
| Great Boys Colliery Explosion, 1877 A blown-out shot at Great Boys Colliery killed eight men, despite the shot-lighter believing he had cleared the area first — the inquest jury strongly censured the mine's management. |
6 March 1877 | Explosion | Greater Manchester | 8 |
| Weigfach Colliery Explosion, 1877 An explosion at the New Weigfach colliery at Fforestfach near Swansea on 9 March 1877 killed eighteen men and boys. The dead included the overman and two trammers aged sixteen and twenty, and most of the men left widows and young children. |
9 March 1877 | Explosion | Swansea | 18 |
| Tynewydd Colliery inundation, 1877 At about four on the afternoon of 11 April 1877, as the men were about to leave, water from the flooded old workings of Cymmer Colliery broke through the boundary barrier into Tynewydd Colliery at Porth. Of fourteen men underground, two drowned at once and two more in a flooded heading; a fifth was killed by escaping compressed air as rescuers broke through to his group. Four men and a boy survived in an air pocket for more than nine days until they were reached through 38 yards of coal on 20 April, a rescue followed across Britain that brought the first Albert Medals awarded for gallantry on land. |
11 April 1877 | Flooding / Inundation | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 5 |
| Annesley Colliery fire and afterdamp Seven men died of carbon monoxide poisoning at Annesley Colliery while working to reach and remove the seat of a fire that had been sealed behind a stopping since May. Some were killed going back in after the others. |
26–27 June 1877 | Gas / Asphyxiation | Nottinghamshire | 7 |
| East Cannock Colliery Explosion (1877) A methane explosion at East Cannock Colliery in 1877 killed four boys and four pit horses, and seriously injured two men. |
31 August 1877 | Explosion | Staffordshire | 4 |
| Blantyre Mining Disaster A firedamp explosion tore through Pits No. 2 and No. 3 of William Dixon's colliery at High Blantyre on the morning of 22 October 1877, killing 207 men and boys -- the worst mining disaster in Scottish history. |
22 October 1877 | Explosion | South Lanarkshire | 207 |
| Unity Brook Colliery explosion Gas escaping from a roof fall exploded in the lower Cannel mine at Unity Brook Colliery, Kearsley, killing forty-three men and boys — the worst day in the town’s history. Nineteen were buried at the parish church. The jury returned accidental death, praised the management, and refused to recommend safety lamps in place of the naked candles the pit worked by. |
12 March 1878 | Explosion | Greater Manchester | 43 |
| Apedale Colliery Explosion, 1878 An explosion at the No. 1 Burley Pit of Apedale Colliery, near Newcastle-under-Lyme, killed twenty-three men and boys — the worse of two major explosions to strike the pit within a decade. |
27 March 1878 | Explosion | Staffordshire | 23 |
| Wood Pit Explosion, 1878 An underground gas explosion at Wood Pit, Haydock, killed 189 men and boys — one of the deadliest mining disasters in English history, and the worst to strike the Haydock Collieries complex. |
7 June 1878 | Explosion | Lancashire | 189 |
| Abercarn colliery (Prince of Wales) explosion, 1878 A firedamp explosion tore through Prince of Wales Colliery (Abercarn Colliery) on 11 September 1878, killing 268 men and boys — the third-worst death toll in South Wales Coalfield history. |
11 September 1878 | Explosion | Caerphilly | 268 |
| Dinas Colliery explosion, 1879 At twenty to eleven on the night of 13 January 1879 an explosion at Dinas blew a half-ton iron cap off the mouth of the upcast shaft and fixed it in the headgear. Sixty-three men died, and forty-four horses. Two months earlier the colliery's manager, John Chubb, had had his certificate suspended for incompetence and gross negligence in the management of that same colliery, and had been reappointed as overman under a nominal head manager. The jury censured the owners for it; the inspector called the arrangement a practical ignoring of the court's judgement. |
13 January 1879 | Explosion | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 63 |
| Fitzwilliam Main Colliery Explosion An explosion of firedamp in the dip levels on the west side of Fitzwilliam Main Colliery, near Hemsworth in the West Riding, on the morning of 25 January 1879. The pit had been open less than a year, gas had scarcely been seen in it, and the men were allowed to work by naked light. A fall is thought to have released gas from a thin coal left in the roof, which fired at a naked flame. Two colliers died at once and three others later; the inspector afterwards pressed the owner to introduce safety lamps throughout. |
25 January 1879 | Explosion | West Yorkshire | 5 |
| Snydale Colliery shaft accident Eight men were killed at Snydale Colliery, near Pontefract, when the winding rope broke and a fully loaded cage fell to the bottom of the shaft. |
7 March 1879 | Winding / Shaft Accident | West Yorkshire | 8 |
| Blantyre Colliery Explosion, 1879 A second firedamp explosion at Dixon's Blantyre No. 1 pit, less than two years after the catastrophic 1877 disaster at the same colliery group, killed 28 men and boys. |
2 July 1879 | Explosion | South Lanarkshire | 28 |
| Leycett Colliery explosion, 1879 A firedamp explosion in the Fair Lady Pit at Leycett on 12 September 1879 killed eight men driving new roads on the north side. The manager had been away from the pit for ten days, the levels had been driven beyond their intended limit, and both he and the contractor were convicted afterwards. |
12 September 1879 | Explosion | Staffordshire | 8 |