Nunnery Colliery roof fall, 1879

A fall of roof at the Nunnery Coal Company's colliery in Sheffield killed a 62-year-old contractor and a trammer on 18 October 1879.

Date	18 October 1879
Mine	Nunnery Colliery
Region	South Yorkshire
Type	Collapse / Roof Fall
Fatalities	2 (Two killed: Thomas Coulson, a contractor, and William Trewertha, a trammer.)
Context	During active mining

A nineteenth-century photograph of the colliery surface, with miners standing among the pithead buildings and headgear. — Nunnery Colliery, about 1865 Unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons and University of Colorado Boulder Libraries

Cause

A fall of roof.

What happened

On 18 October 1879 the roof fell at Nunnery Colliery, Sheffield, by then worked by the Nunnery Coal Company. It killed Thomas Coulson, a contractor aged 62, and William Trewertha, a trammer aged 34.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

On 18 October 1879 a fall of roof at Nunnery Colliery, Sheffield, killed the contractor Thomas Coulson, 62, and the trammer William Trewertha, 34. ^1,2
The colliery then belonged to the Nunnery Coal Company. ^1,2
The deaths were caused by a fall of roof. ^1,2

Related terminology

Mining terms this disaster is structurally linked to, with the nature of the relationship.

Colliery (contextual relationship)
Named twice in this record, first in the summary: “A fall of roof at the Nunnery Coal Company's colliery in Sheffield killed a 62-year-old contractor and a trammer on 18…”
Roof Fall (contextual relationship)
Named twice in this record, first in the summary: “A fall of roof at the Nunnery Coal Company's colliery in Sheffield killed a…”

Sources

(primary) Nunnery Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
(secondary) Mining deaths 1870-1879, surnames C, part 3 (Ian Winstanley) — Healey Hero (Ian Winstanley's mining deaths lists)

Record created: 8 October 2026 · Last researched: 8 October 2026