Weetslade Colliery Explosion

At 6.45 a.m. on Monday 1 October 1951 an explosion of firedamp swept the 3rd East District of the Bensham Seam at Weetslade Colliery, killing the deputy Thomas Whitney and the four men of his pumping and repair shift. The district had been gassed out for five days after flooding from old workings above wrecked its return airway and the manager short-circuited the ventilation to keep a pump running. Recovering the bodies took until November 1952 and the investigation until April 1953, held up first by rising water and then by the discovery of an explosive hydrogen-methane mixture given off by broken shuttle-car batteries, which forced the district to be deliberately flooded. The inquiry could not fix a definite cause, but found the only possible source of ignition to be an arc on the battery of a shuttle car the men had been using to move a fan.

Cause

Ignition of an accumulation of firedamp in the 3rd North Flat of the 3rd East District. The Inspector could not ascertain a definite cause, but the only possible igniting medium found in the whole investigation was fusion on the battery of shuttle car No. 924: a battery lead had been forced onto a connecting link, short-circuiting four cells with an arc heavy enough to melt the lead. He concluded the men had been using the car to move a four-hundredweight auxiliary fan while restoring ventilation to a district full of gas, and that the battery covers had been lifted off, most likely to tighten the copper bridging clamps used to bypass faulty cells.

Contributing factors

Water from flooded Yard Seam workings 50 feet above had heaved the fireclay floor of the return airway, brought down its supports and, on 25 September, blocked it completely with a fall, cutting off the second means of egress. The manager short-circuited the ventilation to keep the turbine pump running, and both flats gassed out and were fenced off. The power cable up the 3rd North road was left alive in an atmosphere of more than 1.25 per cent firedamp, contrary to Section 60(2) of the Coal Mines Act 1911, because it shared a section switch with the pump; shuttle car No. 924 was left parked in the gassed district; batteries had been charged illegally outside the charging station; and the fan was run as a booster with less air reaching it than its capacity, so that it recirculated gas from the innermost workings. Whitney was found to have had no precise instructions for the shift.

What happened

Weetslade's Bensham Seam had been mechanised since 1944, with battery shuttle cars carrying coal from Joy loaders to a belt conveyor. From December 1950 water began entering the 3rd East District through fault planes from the abandoned Yard Seam above, and by early September 1951 it had reached the return airway, heaving the floor and bringing down the girders until the air reaching the first working place fell from 9,000 to 5,000 cubic feet a minute. On Tuesday 25 September a large fall blocked the return entirely. That afternoon the manager opened a door and screen on the conveyor road to send all the remaining air straight through the pumphouse, sacrificing the ventilation of the two working flats to keep the pump going; the overman and Whitney isolated the machinery, and by the next day the flats were full of firedamp and fenced off. Over the weekend a passage was cleared over the fall. Whitney came on at midnight on Sunday 30 September with five men to pump and repair, telephoned his overman at 3 a.m. to say all was well, and at about 4 a.m. helped coil a cutter cable at the 3rd East Junction before going back inbye. No one spoke to any of the five again. At 6.45 a.m. the conveyor attendant Vincent Love felt the ventilation reverse and dust lift in the intake; he and the overman found nothing at first, and only at 8 a.m., when a shotfirer noticed a peculiar smell reaching the new face, did a search find the overcast wrecked and the roads beyond blocked by falls and foul air. The manager sent for the Rescue Service on entering the return and realising this was no ordinary fall. The evidence later showed the men had spent most of the shift restoring ventilation: they had partly closed the door, pushed the gas up the 3rd North road, and used the shuttle car to carry an auxiliary fan to a new position, from which, underfed with air, it recirculated an inflammable mixture back along the levels to where the car stood with its battery covers off.

Rescue & recovery

The first rescue brigade arrived at 11.12 a.m. and, with the overcast patched, teams reached the pumphouse and found the pumpman John Davison dead beside his pump. Thick fumes and a second fall stopped them going further, and with the pump silent the water rose until, within hours, it sealed the return airway to the roof and cut off the ventilation. A replacement pump barely held the level; a larger one was not running until 9 October. By then it was clear the district held an atmosphere fatal to life and hope for the four missing men was abandoned. On 11 October a team found the charging station partly collapsed, four batteries broken and their acid spilt, and charged batteries lying under precariously perched girders; samples from the entrance showed over 9 per cent hydrogen with 6 to 10 per cent methane, a mixture capable of an extremely violent explosion. Some seventy men were withdrawn from the mine at once and sandbag stoppings built outbye. The only safe course was to let the water rise until the batteries were submerged, and a surface experiment showed that an immersed battery still arced months later, so the district was re-entered on 23 October with the charging station kept permanently under water. New roads had to be driven above the flooded intake, reaching the 3rd North in June 1952; the bodies of the four missing men were recovered between 19 and 29 November 1952, about 200 yards up the 3rd North road beside the fan they had been moving. Recovery work ended on 18 April 1953 when the last of the electrical apparatus had been examined. In all 199 rescue teams from Northumberland and Durham took part, using 7,678 pounds of liquid air in 50 sets of breathing apparatus, and no one was hurt in the operation.

Investigation & inquiry

H.M. Divisional Inspector of Mines W. Brown investigated under Section 82 of the Coal Mines Act 1911 and reported to the Minister of Fuel and Power in May 1955; the report was presented to Parliament in November. He ruled out contraband, explosives, safety lamps (all seven examined at the Safety in Mines Research Establishment), frictional heating, spontaneous combustion and the turbine pump, whose motor and switchgear still worked after fifteen months under water. Coal dust played no material part. Every other electrical item in the district was found free of fault, leaving the shuttle-car battery as the only possible source, and the positions of the two lifted battery covers, one inside the car and one leaning against it, satisfied him they had been removed by the men rather than blown off. The coroner for South Northumberland, J. P. Dodds, held an adjourned inquest at the Miners' Welfare Hall, Burradon, on 15 and 16 October 1953, and the jury found that the five men died from the effects of an explosion and that there was no evidence as to its cause.

Legal & regulatory aftermath

The Inspector found the management and officials remiss in leaving the 3rd North power cable alive in a gassed district, in allowing shuttle cars to be charged outside the charging station contrary to the mine's special regulations, and in failing to bring the shuttle cars out of the district when its ventilation was cut off. He dismissed the suggestion that Whitney had acted against instructions, finding none of a precise nature had been given, but noted that using the fan as a booster contravened Regulation 15 of the Coal Mines (Ventilation) General Regulations 1947. No prosecution is recorded in the sources consulted.

Changes to practice & legislation

The report recommended that shuttle cars should not be used where there may be danger from inflammable gas, that charging stations be supported with steel girder frameworks and kept free of spilt acid, and that circuits feeding gassed districts have their own isolating switches. It drew attention to the hazards of 'bridging' faulty battery cells with copper strip underground, and of stray leakage currents across acid-wet battery tops that had given drivers shocks and visible sparks.

Memorials & commemoration

No dedicated memorial to the five men has been located. The Durham Mining Museum records headstones for John Fisher, Thomas Patterson and Thomas Whitney in Benton Cemetery.

Recorded claims

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

• Five men were killed: the deputy Thomas Whitney and four workmen, Thomas Patterson, Matthew Charlton, John Fisher and John Davison. ^1,2
• The explosion occurred at 6.45 a.m. on 1 October 1951 in the 3rd East District of the Bensham Seam. ^1,2
• A definite cause was not ascertained; the only possible igniting medium found was fusion on the battery of shuttle car No. 924, where a lead forced onto a connecting link had short-circuited four cells. ^1,2
• The two flats had been without ventilation since 25 September, when the manager short-circuited the air to keep the pump running after a fall blocked the return airway; they were found full of firedamp the next day and fenced off. ²
• Samples taken on 11 October at the charging station contained 9.02 and 9.65 per cent hydrogen with 6.11 and 9.64 per cent methane, and some seventy men were withdrawn from the mine until the batteries had been submerged. ²
• The pumpman's body was found on the day of the explosion; the other four were recovered between 19 and 29 November 1952, about 200 yards up the 3rd North road, and recovery operations ended on 18 April 1953. ²
• 199 rescue teams from Northumberland and Durham took part, using 7,678 pounds of liquid air in 50 sets of self-contained breathing apparatus, without further loss of life or injury. ²
• The adjourned inquest before J. P. Dodds, coroner for South Northumberland, sat at the Miners' Welfare Hall, Burradon, on 15 and 16 October 1953 and found the men died from the effects of an explosion with no evidence as to its cause. ²
• The Inspector's report, dated May 1955, was presented to Parliament in November 1955, the delay being due to the protracted recovery; a newspaper report of 7 December 1955 was headed 'Investigations Delayed By Gas'. ^2,3
• The first newspaper reports of 2 October 1951 spoke of four men trapped with rescue teams near them; by 3 October hope was described as remote. ³

Related terminology

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

• Afterdamp (hazard involved)
  The district was filled with an irrespirable afterdamp atmosphere for weeks, forcing rescue teams to work under breathing apparatus and sample the fringe continuously.
• Breathing Apparatus (rescue/recovery concept)
  Fifty sets of self-contained breathing apparatus, fed with 7,678 pounds of liquid air, were used by 199 rescue teams during the recovery.
• Deputy (contextual relationship)
  Thomas Whitney, the deputy in charge of the shift, was among the dead; the report examines his decisions in restoring the ventilation.
• Firedamp (direct cause)
  The explosion was of firedamp that had accumulated in the two unventilated flats over five days.
• Return Airway (contributing factor)
  Floor heave and falls in the flooded return airway blocked the second means of egress and forced the ventilation to be short-circuited.
• Room and Pillar (contextual relationship)
  The Bensham Seam was worked bord and pillar, mechanised with shuttle cars; the loosely stowed stentons of the pillared area let intake air short-circuit through the workings.
• Safety Lamp (contextual relationship)
  All seven electric and flame safety lamps in use were examined at the Safety in Mines Research Establishment and cleared as a source of ignition.

Photographs & further reading

This page doesn't try to reproduce everything — these are the best original sources found for this disaster.

Sources

1. (secondary) Durham Mining Museum: Weetslade Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (primary) Report on the causes of, and circumstances attending, the explosion which occurred at Weetslade Colliery, Northumberland, on 1st October 1951 (Cmd. 9614) — W. Brown, H.M. Divisional Inspector of Mines, Ministry of Fuel and Power, 1955; transcribed by the Durham Mining Museum
3. (secondary) Durham Mining Museum: newspaper article index for Weetslade Colliery — Durham Mining Museum

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