Wallsend Colliery Explosion – Gateshead – 1838

WALLSEND. Gateshead, Northumberland. 19th. December, 1838.

The pit was called the Wallsend “G” Pit or Church Pit and was the property of William Russell Esq. The furnace pit for this was “A” Pit which was about a mile away. Three years before 140 lives had been lost in an explosion at the same colliery. The explosion occurred on a Wednesday evening when eleven shifters who had gone to work after the pitmen to repair and prop the roads and remove stones were at work. There were only eleven men in the pit.

At about 6.30 the furnaceman saw foul air coming out and raised the alarm. It was found that there had been an explosion and all in the pit were killed but the force of the blast had not reached the shaft.

Those who died were:

• Thomas Dinning, left a wife and five children
• Matthew Towns, single.
• Jacob Maddison, single.
• Joseph Roseby, left a wife and several children.
• Thomas Rutherford, single.
• William Smith, single.
• Hugh Row, single.
• William Ellerington, single.
• T. Wilkinson, left a wife.
• John Leighton, left a wife and five young children.
• Robert Bones, left a wife and nine children.

Bones had kept a public house in Throckley but had found the income insufficient to support his family and had gone to work in the pit. He had worked there for only three days when the disaster occurred.

The furnace was extinguished and a party went down the pit. Rutherford’s body was found near the pit eye. He had been to bringing 162 props down the shaft. The others were later found burnt and mutilated. At the inquest before Steven Reed, Coroner for the district, a verdict of “Accidental Death” was returned.

REFERENCES
Annals of Coal Mining, Galloway, Vol. 2, p.42.
Latimers’ Local records. p.102.
Mining Journal. Vol. vii, p.206.
Durham Advertiser

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