Ravensworth Colliery Explosion – Ravensworth – 1757

RAVENSWORTH. Ravensworth, Durham. 10th, June, 1757.

In the latter part of the seventeenth century, the colliery belonged to Sir Thomas Liddell. Water was drawn up the shaft by buckets, in stages and the whole operation powered by water wheels at the surface. A steam engine, built by, William Brown, who was the engineer at Throckley Colliery, was installed in 1750.

This at the Ravensworth pit was recorded at the time:

Sir Thomas Liddell, a most ingenious gentleman, who, for procuring a fall of water which may serve the wheels of all three sinks, hath erected the first upon pillars like a wind-mill, pretty high above the ground, from which the falling water makes the second go close above the ground. And to make the water fall to the third, the whole wheel to go within the surface of the ground, from which the water passes into the mine which terminates at a river under the works, which mine is of considerable length.

An explosion was reported to have taken place at the colliery which claimed sixteen lives. Fifteen were killed by the blast and one died later.

REFERENCES
Annals of Coal Mining. Galloway, vol.1 p.270.
Sykes Local Records, Vol. i, p.217.
Fynes, History of the Northumberland and Durham Miners.
Newcastle Intelligencer.
Newcastle Courant.

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