MineArchiveExplosion disasters
Firedamp, coal dust or blasting explosions underground.
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36 disasters in the 1840s, of 502.
| Disaster | Date | Type | Region | Fatalities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St David's Colliery explosion, 1840 Late in June 1840 firedamp exploded underground at St David's Colliery near Llanelli, burning twenty-six men and boys. Five were killed, among them a boy of ten, and a sixth, David Samuel, fourteen, died of his injuries on 15 July. Survivors escaped only by retreating at once from the part of the mine where the gas fired. A newspaper said no one was to blame. |
27 June 1840 | Explosion | Carmarthenshire | 6 |
| Mostyn Colliery explosion, 1840 An explosion at Mostyn Colliery, Flintshire, in the summer of 1840 blew large lumps of coal up a shaft 390 feet deep. Eight men were killed outright and a man and a boy were brought out badly burnt; eleven died in all and five more were seriously injured, leaving six widows and thirty fatherless children. |
July 1840 | Explosion | Flintshire | 11 |
| Quarter Colliery Explosion On 16 March 1841 an explosion underground at Quarter Colliery, near Hamilton in Lanarkshire, killed every one of the seven people working below at the time, one of them a boy. Four more men died in the attempt to reach them, so that the rescue cost almost as many lives as the explosion itself. Eleven died in all. The pit belonged to the Duke of Hamilton and was operated by the ironmasters Colin, Dunlop & Co. |
16 March 1841 | Explosion | South Lanarkshire | 11 |
| Bigge Pit explosion, 1841 In the early afternoon of 19 April 1841 an explosion in the Bensham seam of the Bigge Pit at Matthew Bell and partners' Willington Colliery, between Newcastle and North Shields, killed 32 of the 35 below. The three survivors were working in a stone drift elsewhere in the mine. |
19 April 1841 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | 32 |
| Thornley Colliery Explosion, 1841 A firedamp explosion in the Harvey Seam 'A' Pit at Thornley Colliery on 5 August 1841 killed nine workers, eight of them boys aged between 9 and 17, after gas accumulated when a young trapper left his ventilation door open too long. |
5 August 1841 | Explosion | County Durham | 9 |
| Black Mine Pit explosion, 1842 At about eleven o'clock on 8 April 1842 an explosion in Swyre and Lees' Black Mine pit at Flowery Field, Newton, near Hyde, killed 17 of the 26 below. Ten were found at the far end of the mine, where they had run for safety. |
8 April 1842 | Explosion | Greater Manchester | 17 |
| Stormont Main Colliery explosion, 1843 At 7.45 a.m. on 5 April 1843 gas exploded at J. Grace and Partners' Stormont Main Colliery at Wrekenton, near Gateshead, killing 27 men and boys. Foul air had stood in the workings for days, and one man had left the pit half an hour earlier saying his life was in danger. |
5 April 1843 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | 27 |
| Winstanley Colliery explosion, 1843 On Monday 20 November 1843 Winstanley Colliery, near Wigan, exploded as work resumed after the pit had stood over the weekend, killing five and injuring others. |
20 November 1843 | Explosion | Greater Manchester | 5 |
| Dinas Colliery explosion, 1844 On the first morning of 1844 the miners of Dinas went down wishing each other 'Blwyddyn newydd dda i chi!' Shortly afterwards the village of Storehouse heard a roar it had never heard before. Twelve men and boys, the youngest nine years old, had died in Walter Coffin's Middle Pit — the first great explosion in the Rhondda. The stall where it began had been examined not by the overman but by the manager's young son, whom the overman had taken down with him; the coroner invited the jury to find manslaughter and the jury returned accidental death. |
1 January 1844 | Explosion | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 12 |
| Duke Pit explosion, 1844 An explosion of firedamp in Duke Pit, Whitehaven, on the afternoon of 11 January 1844 killed the eleven haggers who had just gone down for the night shift, and ten or eleven of the pit's horses. The pit, the Earl of Lonsdale's, was thought one of the best ventilated in the district, and miners were used to working with the tops off their safety lamps. |
11 January 1844 | Explosion | Cumbria | 11 |
| West Moor Colliery explosion, 1844 At about nine in the morning of 18 January 1844 gas from a fall of stones was fired at a candle in Lord Ravensworth and Partners' West Moor Colliery, Killingworth. Six men were burnt but left the pit alive; five or six of them died. |
18 January 1844 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | 5 |
| Haswell Colliery explosion, 1844 At three o'clock on the afternoon of Saturday 28 September 1844 an explosion at Haswell Colliery in east Durham killed ninety-five of the ninety-nine men and boys below ground, and every pony with them. It was the worst explosion the Durham coalfield had yet seen, and it came weeks after the end of the Great Strike of 1844. The inquiry found no blame attributable to anyone, leaving the owners with no liability to the widows and orphans, and the Home Office sent Michael Faraday and Charles Lyell north to attend the inquest. |
28 September 1844 | Explosion | County Durham | 95 |
| Wern Colliery Explosion, Cwmafan, 1844 A naked candle carried into a gas-filled stall at this Cwm Avon coal level ignited firedamp, killing three men outright; a fourth died soon after while helping recover the bodies. |
Early December 1844 | Explosion | Neath Port Talbot | 4 |
| West Moor Colliery explosion, 1845 A blower had been struck a fortnight earlier when a fault was cut through at West Moor colliery, Killingworth. On the evening of 3 April 1845 the gas fired at the end of one of the headings, killing four men and six boys. The viewer, John Wales, told the inquest that lamps were not needed in the pit; the men had Davy lamps and lived, and the belief was that a boy sent down ahead of them with a naked light set the gas off. The coroner could find no fault with the ventilation and the jury returned accidental death. |
3 April 1845 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | 10 |
| Mynydd Newydd Colliery explosion, 1845 Shortly after six on Saturday morning, 17 May 1845, an explosion at the Swansea Coal Company's Mynydd Newydd Colliery, Fforest-fach, killed boys aged twelve to seventeen. A boy was believed to have taken a naked light into a heading marked as unsafe to fetch a shovel. |
1845 | Explosion | Swansea | 5 |
| Jarrow Colliery explosion, 1845 At about 1 p.m. on 21 August 1845 gas exploded in the Low Main seam of D. Brown's Jarrow Colliery, killing 39 men and boys. Only one of the 36 working in the seam survived; others died of afterdamp in the Bensham seam above, and an overman died trying to rescue them. |
21 August 1845 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | 39 |
| Haydock Colliery explosion, 1845 On 5 November 1845, just after the night shift had come up and nineteen day men had gone down, an explosion at Turner and Evans's colliery at Haydock blew the planks off the shaft, killing thirteen and injuring six. The youngest dead was eight years old. |
5 November 1845 | Explosion | Lancashire | 13 |
| Black Vein Colliery explosion, 1846 On 14 January 1846 the naked flame of a candle fired a pocket of firedamp in one district of the Black Vein Pit at Risca, killing 35 men and boys, most of them suffocated by the afterdamp. Men working elsewhere in the pit felt only a strong current of air. It was the first of the explosions that earned the colliery its name as the death pit. |
14 January 1846 | Explosion | Caerphilly | 35 |
| Graig Colliery explosion, 1846 On Wednesday 6 May 1846 fire damp exploded in the Pwll y Graig pit of the Plymouth Iron Company, Pentrebach, near Merthyr, severely burning seven men and boys. All seven died. |
6 May 1846 | Explosion | Merthyr Tydfil | 7 |
| Rounds Green New Pit explosion, 1846 On the morning of Tuesday 17 November 1846, shortly after twenty-five men had gone down, firedamp exploded at the naked lights in the Rounds Green New Pit at Oldbury, killing nineteen. Men still being lowered were blown up the shaft and two fell to their deaths. |
17 November 1846 | Explosion | West Midlands | 19 |
| Burgh Colliery explosion, 1846 On 24 November 1846 two explosions of firedamp, fired by a collier's candle, swept John Hargreaves's Burgh Colliery at Coppull, near Chorley. Eight or nine died, three of them girls working underground four years after the law had barred them. |
24 November 1846 | Explosion | Lancashire | 8 |
| Oaks Colliery explosion, 1847 A firedamp explosion at Oaks Colliery (then also known as Ardsley Main) killed 73 men and boys — at the time regarded as the first really serious explosion in the South Yorkshire Coalfield. |
5 March 1847 | Explosion | South Yorkshire | 73 |
| Croft Pit explosion, 1847 About five o'clock on Friday 28 May 1847 gas fired at the far end of the Main Band in Croft Pit, Whitehaven, nearly two miles from the shaft, killing the four coal-haggers who had just gone in for the night shift with their lamps uncovered. |
28 May 1847 | Explosion | Cumbria | 4 |
| Felling Colliery explosion, 1847 Shortly after nine on the evening of 22 June 1847 an explosion at Felling Colliery killed six miners, four outright and two from their injuries, and eighteen horses. It began not in the coal but at an underground haulage engine, whose fire had been banked with the damper shut so that it made gas like a retort. The jury found accidental death and asked for the damper to be pinned open. |
22 June 1847 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | 6 |
| Kirkless Hall Colliery explosion, 1847 About one o'clock on 28 June 1847, at the Higher Patricroft or Kirkless Hall Colliery on the canal between Ince and Aspull, a fire started by a miner's shot in the coal led to an explosion of firedamp. Thirteen died and about thirty were injured. |
28 June 1847 | Explosion | Greater Manchester | 13 |
| Deep Pit, Nantyglo explosion, 1847 On Monday 6 December 1847 firedamp exploded in one of the Bailey brothers' coal pits at Nantyglo, attributed to their Deep Pit, killing eight men, among them John Parkes and his two sons, and badly injuring three. The inquest heard that a ventilation door had been ordered but not fitted. The colliers struck afterwards. |
6 December 1847 | Explosion | Blaenau Gwent | 8 |
| Lakes Pit explosion, Dukinfield, 1848 Shortly after the midday meal on 23 February 1848 gas fired in the Victoria Pit at Dukinfield, the deepest in the district, where Swire and Lees' men were cutting through into old workings. Seven died; the owners had long tried, and failed, to stop the men using candles. |
23 February 1848 | Explosion | Greater Manchester | 7 |
| Eaglesbush Colliery Explosion, 1848 Gas that had gathered in the old stalls of Eaglesbush Colliery near Neath exploded soon after three o'clock on the afternoon of Wednesday 29 March 1848, and the gas in the other stalls exploded after it. About thirty men and boys were at work and twenty were killed, most of them by afterdamp; some were found to have been trying to get out along a level with their way blocked by wagons. The colliery had no artificial ventilation and naked lights were allowed. The inquest returned accidental death. |
29 March 1848 | Explosion | Neath Port Talbot | 20 |
| Murton Colliery Polka Pit explosion, 1848 An explosion in the Polka Pit, Murton Colliery, near South Hetton, at about half past twelve on 15 August 1848 killed fifteen men and boys, sixteen by another count, among about a hundred underground. Candles were used throughout the mine, and the toll would have been higher had one workman not had the presence of mind to hold the survivors to the shaft. |
15 August 1848 | Explosion | County Durham | 15 |
| Darley Main Colliery explosion, 1849 At about 11.20 a.m. on 24 January 1849 firedamp exploded in the Barnsley seam at G. Jarratt's Darley Main Colliery in Worsbrough Dale, near Barnsley, killing 75 of the 101 men and boys underground. It was the worst Yorkshire disaster since the Oaks explosion two years before. |
24 January 1849 | Explosion | South Yorkshire | 75 |
| Middle Patricroft Pit explosion, 1849 Soon after six on the morning of 6 March 1849 an explosion in the Five Foot seam of the Ince Hall Coal and Cannel Company's Middle Patricroft Pit, between Wigan and Hindley, killed twelve of the twenty-six below, among them a father and his three sons. |
6 March 1849 | Explosion | — | 12 |
| Werfa Colliery explosion, 1849 On Monday 14 May 1849 a man carrying a Davy lamp went into a heading at Werfa Colliery, above Aberdare, that was fouled with gas, and a boy followed him with a candle. The gas exploded at the candle. Two young colliers were killed and three more died of their burns; twelve were injured in all. It was the colliery's second explosion in a week, and the inquest jury asked for a fireman to inspect the workings before the men went in. |
14 May 1849 | Explosion | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 5 |
| Great Bridge Colliery explosion, 1849 In June 1849, when about seventy men and boys went down Mr Morris's Friary Field pit at Great Bridge after it had stood idle since the Saturday, an explosion killed fourteen. The doggy, Thomas Pritchard, was said to have caused it by unscrewing his lamp; he was among the dead. |
June 1849 | Explosion | West Midlands | 14 |
| Hebburn Colliery Explosion, 1849 A firedamp explosion in the Bensham seam at Hebburn Colliery on the morning of 5 June 1849 killed 33 men and boys, with almost everyone in the affected north-west district of the pit killed outright. |
5 June 1849 | Explosion | Tyne and Wear | 33 |
| Cwmnantddu Colliery Explosion, 1849 An explosion of firedamp in the New Pit at Cwmnantddu — the colliery later known as Llanerch — killed five men on the morning of 10 August 1849. Two of them were a father and his son of about fourteen. |
10 August 1849 | Explosion | Torfaen | 5 |
| Lletty Shenkin Colliery Explosion, 1849 An explosion of firedamp at Lletty Shenkin Colliery, Cwmbach, on the afternoon of Friday 10 August 1849 killed fifty-two of the 112 men and boys underground. Only about five were burned; the rest were suffocated by the afterdamp. The inquest returned accidental death with a rider that the colliery's old workings should be separately ventilated and never connected with the intake air. |
10 August 1849 | Explosion | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 52 |