Explosion disasters

Firedamp, coal dust or blasting explosions underground.

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12 disasters in the 1810s, of 502.

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
Collingwood Main Colliery explosion, 1813 On 17 July 1813 gas fired at the candles of an overman, deputies and others who had gone down Collingwood Main Colliery at Chirton, North Shields, to save timber and iron from a creep. Eight were killed and two badly injured. The creep had blocked the ventilation.	17 July 1813	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	8
Fatfield Colliery Hall Pit explosion, 1813 On 28 September 1813 the Hall Pit at Fatfield, in the parish of Chester-le-Street, fired with foul air and killed 30 or more men and boys. A stone falling from the roof was thought to have driven firedamp into the workings, where it caught at the miners' candles.	28 September 1813	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	30
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	11
Newbottle Colliery Success Pit explosion, 1815 At about four in the afternoon of 2 June 1815 an explosion in the Success Pit of Newbottle Colliery, the Nesham family's colliery near Houghton-le-Spring, killed 57 of the 72 people in the pit.	1815	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	57
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
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
Jarrow Colliery explosion, 1817 On 25 September 1817 an explosion of gas at Jarrow Colliery, near South Shields, burned a number of men and boys, six of whom died of their injuries over the following weeks. It was the first of five fatal explosions at the colliery between 1817 and 1845.	25 September 1817	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	6
Rainton Plain Pit explosion, 1817 Early on 18 December 1817 firedamp exploded in the Plain Pit of Rainton Colliery, near Houghton-le-Spring, killing 27, eleven men and sixteen boys. The pit was thought free of gas and still worked by candles, and the hewers had not yet gone down, which saved about 160 lives.	18 December 1817	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	27
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
Lumley George Pit explosion, 1819 On 9 October 1819 gas fired at the candle of a hewer named Gee in the George Pit at Lumley, near Chester-le-Street. Eleven men and boys were killed outright, and Gee and a boy died the next day, making thirteen; many others were badly hurt.	9 October 1819	Explosion	County Durham	13