Sheriff Hill Colliery explosion, 1793

Date	27 December 1793
Mine	Sheriff Hill Colliery
Region	Tyne and Wear
Type	Explosion
Fatalities	14 (Named from burial registers: Joseph Dixon, Thomas Dixon and Hutton Forster, buried at St Andrew's, Lamesley, on 3 January 1794, and William Bell on 4 January. The other ten are not named in the sources read.)
Context	During active mining (The Hope Pit of Sheriff Hill or Ellison Main Colliery on Gateshead Fell, a young colliery in its first recorded years of work.)

On 27 December 1793 an explosion in the Hope Pit at Sheriff Hill Colliery, on Gateshead Fell, killed fourteen people, the first of the colliery's recorded disasters. Almost nothing else about it survives: John Sykes's Local Records gave it a single sentence, and only four of the dead are known by name, from their burials at Lamesley church a week later.

Cause

An explosion, presumed of firedamp; the cause is not recorded in the sources read.

What happened

Sykes recorded only that an explosion took place in the Hope Pit, when fourteen human beings were hurried into eternity. Another explosion followed at the colliery a year later, on 21 December 1794, its toll unrecorded.

Memorials & commemoration

Four of the dead were buried in St Andrew's churchyard, Lamesley, on 3 and 4 January 1794.

Recorded claims

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

An explosion at Sheriff Hill Colliery on 27 December 1793 killed fourteen people. ^1,2,3
John Sykes's Local Records (1833) place the explosion in the Hope Pit, 'when fourteen human beings were hurried into eternity'. ³
Four of the dead are known by name from burials at St Andrew's, Lamesley: Joseph Dixon, Thomas Dixon and Hutton Forster on 3 January 1794 and William Bell on 4 January. ^4,3

Related terminology

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

Colliery (contextual relationship)
Named 3 times in this record, first in the summary: “On 27 December 1793 an explosion in the Hope Pit at Sheriff Hill Colliery, on Gateshead Fell, killed fourteen people, the first of the…”
Firedamp (hazard involved)
An explosion, presumably of firedamp; the cause is unrecorded.

Sources

(secondary) Sheriff Hill Colliery — Wikipedia
(primary) Tyne and Wear HER 3844: Sheriff Hill Colliery (Ellison Main) — Tyne and Wear Historic Environment Record (Sitelines)
(secondary) Durham Mining Museum - Colliery Disaster 1793 (Sheriff Hill, Hope Pit) — Durham Mining Museum
(secondary) Durham Mining Museum: Sheriff Hill Colliery — Durham Mining Museum

Record created: 9 September 2026 · Last researched: 13 September 2026