Killingworth Colliery Explosion – Killingworth – 1806

KILLINGWORTH. Killingworth, Northumberland. 28th. March, 1806.

In evidence to the 1835 Commission, George Stevenson, the engineer at the colliery gave an account of developments that had taken place there. He said:

In first going down the Killingworth Pit, there was a steam engine underground for the purpose of drawing water from a pit that was sunk at some distance from the first shaft. The Killingworth coalfield is considerably dislocated. After the colliery was opened, at a very short distance from the shafts, they met with one of the dislocations, or dykes as they are called. The coal was thrown down, I think, about 40 yards. Considerable time was spent in sinking another pit. I forget the distance from the main shaft, but the pit was sunk to the depth I allude to. The engine had been erected some time previous to me going down the pits. On my being down the pit, I proposed making that same engine draw the coals up an inclined plane that descended immediately from that place.

Stevenson was asked if he recollected anything about the accident at the colliery in 1806, when ten lost their lives in an explosion.

The coal was nine and a half feet thick at the site where the explosion was localised which was at a considerable angle and 190 fathoms down. The upcast shaft was 12 feet in diameter and operated by two furnaces. The ventilation air was split four times. Gas had been seen in the workings and the work was being done with the men using safety lamps but the naked lights were left at a nearby door. The leading headways were twenty yards apart and holed at forty yards which meant that there were six yards of brattice to each holing.

In the evidence at the inquest into the disaster, it appeared that a man had taken gunpowder and candles into the working which was against orders. The ventilation dramatically decreased due to the upcast shaft being wet and this caused gas to collect and the man had the means of ignition. The colliery exploded with the loss of the lives (some records say nine).

Mr. George Stevenson was the engineman at the colliery and witnessed the explosion. It was his opinion that the disaster occurred because of the wetness of the upcast shaft. His account says:

The pit had just ceased drawing coals, and nearly all the men had got out. It was sometime in the afternoon a little after mid-day there were five men that went down the pit, four of them for the purpose of preparing a place for the furnace, the fifth was a person that went down to set them to work this man had just got to the bottom of the shaft, about two or three minutes, when the explosion took place I sent the man down myself. I had left the mouth of the pit and gone about 50 or 60 yards away, when I heard a tremendous noise, looked around, and saw the discharge come out of the pit mouth like the discharge of a cannon it continued to blow, I think, for a quarter of an hour, discharging everything that had come into the current stones came up and trusses of hay, that went down during the day and I think the trusses had in some measures injured the ventilation. The ground all around the top of the pit was in a trembling state I went as near as I durst go, and everything appeared crackling about me part of the brattice which was very strong, was blown away at the bottom of the pits very large pumps were lifted from their places so that the engines could not work.

The pit was divided into four partitions it was a large pit, 14 feet in diameter, and partitions put down at right angles, which formed four. The explosion took place in one of these four quarters but it broke through all the others at the bottom, and the brattice or partition was set on fire at the first explosion. After it had continued to blow for a quarter of an hour, as I have stated, the discharge ceased, and the atmosphere all round poured into the pit to fill up the vacant place that must have been formerly occupied by the flame. In one of the other pits, that was connected with this one in which the explosion took place by some doors in the drift leading from one pit to another, several men who were in the adjoining pit, was not reached by the explosion and several of them got up safe.

The ropes in the first pit were shattered to pieces by the force of the blasts, but the ropes in the other pits were still left uninjured, at least they were very little injured. Nobody durst go near the shafts for fear of another explosion taking place, for some time at last we considered it necessary to run the rope backwards and forwards, and give the miners, if there were any at the bottom of the shaft, an opportunity of catching the rope as it came at the bottom whenever the rope went to the bottom it was allowed to remain a short time till we considered that there was time to cling to it several men were got out in this way, and another man had hold of the rope and was drawn away, when an explosion took place at the time he was in the shaft, but it was merely like the discharge of a gun, and it did not continue like the former blast. This man, it appeared, had been helped up so far with the increased velocity, the man came up without being injured.

Four of the five men who were reported to have gone down the pit, were found buried among some corves and little carriages at the bottom of the shaft. The fifth man, the underlooker, had thrown himself behind some pillars so that the current passed him. The flame came about him, and nearly all his clothes were burnt off his back, but he was one of those who escaped by the rope after the blast ceased.

The pit continued to blow every two or three hours for two days, the coal being on fire, but some of the explosions were equal to the first. The other shafts became wrecked very soon. The workings were drowned in order to extinguish the fire, and the bodies of the unfortunate victims were not recovered for twenty-three of twenty-four weeks.

Fire engines were brought from Newcastle and water pumped into the pit to control the fire and Stevenson commented that the disaster cost £20,000, independent of the loss of life.

The following names are from the local Parish Burial Register and are marked “lost at Killingworth Colliery on 28th March”:

• James Jobbs, pitman buried July 9th, aged 56.
• Robert Curry, pitman, buried July 17th aged 60.
• William Reed, pitman, buried July 19th aged 37.
• William Mood, pitman, buried July 23rd aged 44.
• William Taylor, buried July 23rd aged 40.
• James Brown, blacksmith, son of Thomas Brown, buried August 28th 1806, aged 19.
• Edward Wales, pitman, son of Edward Wales, buried August 29th, aged 22.
• William Brown, pitman, buried September 2, aged 34.

REFERENCES
Annals of Coal Mining. Galloway, Vol. 1, p. 398.
Report from the Select Committee on Accidents in Mines. 4th September 1835. p.98. 1503, 1514.
A History of Coal Mining in Great Britain. Galloway.
Mines Inspectors Report, 1853. Mathias Dunn.
Burial Register, St Bartholomew, Long Benton.

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