Hebburn Colliery Explosion – Hebburn – 1805

HEBBURN. Hebburn, Durham. 21st. October, 1805.

There are early records of a colliery, 90 to 95 feet deep, and sink at Hebburn in the Reign of James I. It worked a seam near the surface called the Monkton seam after the village of the same name near Jarrow which claimed to be the birthplace of the Venerable Bede. The coal was shipped to a staithe shown on Gardiner’s map of the Tyne, 1655 and called the “Black Steath.”

The colliery exploded with the loss of thirty-two to thirty-five lives depending on the account.

A physician of Newcastle-on-Tyne, Dr. Trotter, was visiting a sick friend when he passed the churchyard at Jarrow as the victims of the disaster were being buried. The scene affected him so much, even more so when he learned that they had left five widows and eighty-one orphaned children. He prepared a pamphlet addressed to the coal owners and the Agents, entitled “A Proposal for Destroying Fire and Choak Damps of Coal Mines” in which he suggested as a scheme of neutralisation of the gases. This was the cause of much discussion on the subject of explosions in coal mines.

REFERENCES
Annals of Coal Mining. Galloway, Vol.1, p.398.
Sykes Local Records.

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