Walker Colliery Explosion – Gateshead – 1765

WALKER. Gateshead, Northumberland. 2nd. April, 1765.

In the early part of the eighteen century, this was the most important and deepest colliery in the country. A few years after it opened a horse engine with a horizontal cast iron wheel was used to raise 6 cwt baskets from a depth of 600 feet in two minutes. The thickness of good coal at the colliery was about 6 feet. The men worked 6 or 7 hours out of the 24 and dug from about fifteen to twenty-five baskets each weight 6 cwt. for which they were paid five farthings, which made their pay from about 2s to 2s 6d per day.

The boys remained in the mine from 2 a.m. till a little after 4 p.m. They filled the baskets and took them to the pit with the help of 20 horses. They earned about 2s 2d per day. Two steam engines, built by, William Brown, who was the engineer at Throckley Colliery, were installed in 1758. The colliery took delivery of an engine, of seventy-four inch bore which was then and a half feet long which was made at the Colebrookdale foundry which had the capacity to raise 306 cwt. of water.

There was an explosion at the colliery on 1st April which made a report like thunder but no lives were lost although several were badly burnt. On the following day, several men descended to inspect the state of the mine when it fired for a second time and claimed eight lives. Seventeen horses were also killed and were burnt in a most shocking manner.

REFERENCES
Annals of Coal Mining, vol.1, p.266.
Sykes Local Records.
Fynes. History of the Northumberland and Durham Miners.

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