Harrington Colliery Mill Pit Explosion – Pensher – 1812

HARRINGTON MILL PIT. Pensher, Durham. 10th. October, 1812.

The explosion killed four men and twenty four boys.

The local burial registers list the following deaths:

• Robert Wilson aged 14 years.
• William Wilson aged 19 years.
• Robert Sheards aged 7 years.
• John Armstrong aged 28 years.
• John Hutchinson aged 20 years.
• William Hutchinson aged 17 years.
• Andrew Stringer aged 17 years.
• George Carr.
• Daniel Anderson aged 19 years.
• John Smith aged 15 years.
• Joseph Foster aged 16 years.
• John Bewick aged 8 years.
• James Cook aged 8 years.
• John Barnes aged 17 years.
• Edward Norton aged 25 years.
• Thomas Welsh aged 15 years.
• William Barnes aged 15 years.
• Edward Welsh aged 8 years.
• Thomas Crosby aged 67 years.
• Robert Gordon aged 61 years.
• Johnson Welsh aged 8 years.
• Ralph Lewis aged 12 years.

REFERENCES
The Annals of Coal Mining. Galloway. Vol. 1. p.403.
Sykes Local Records. p.179
Coal Mines. Holmes, p. 49.
Burial Register, Penshaw Parish Church.

Information supplied by Ian Winstanley and the Coal Mining History Resource Centre.