Robert Allen
About eleven o'clock in the forenoon, the carburetted hydrogen gas in the Row pit, at Harraton colliery, on the river Wear, unfortunately ignited, when thirty-eight men and boys lost their lives. It was one of the most violent explosions which had happened for years; corves, trams, and several utensils used at the bottom of the shaft (82 fathoms in depth) being blown into the air, together with the bodies of two of the unfortunate workmen, one with the head off, and the other cut in two in the middle. All the sufferers, except one from Fatfield, belonged to New Painsher, and were buried there on Wednesday, July 2nd. Amongst them were ten belonging to one family, of the name of Hills, viz, the grandfather, his two sons, and seven grandsons. This dreadful accident was caused entirely by the perverse obstinacy of a young man, named John Moody, one of the hewers, who, in defiance of the orders of the overman, refused to use Sir H. Davy's lamp, and lighted a candle, which was twice put out by the workmen whom he was to relieve, but he re-lighted it by unscrewing the lamp, and thus sacrificed his own life, and the lives of his companions. But the painful narrative does not close here: on Wednesday afternoon, some of the workmen went into the Nova Scotia pit, of the same colliery, to repair some part of the shaft which had been injured by the explosion of the Row pit, and not returning in time, another party of men went down to seek them, but were obliged to return without effecting their object, being unable to proceed on account of the great quantity of choke damp which had entered the workings, supposed from the Row pit subsequent to the explosion. The eight workmen who had first gone down were obliged, therefore, to be left to their fate. Their bodies were got out on the following day, six of whom were quite dead; two were still alive, with little hopes of recovery.
Pub.
Date | Article (Newspaper) |
|---|
| 05 Jul 1817 | News (Durham Advertiser) |
- Durham Mining Disasters, c.1700 - 1950s by Maureen Anderson, Published by Wharncliffe Books, 2008, ISBN 1-845630-73-4
- Contributions by members of the Public
- Local Historian's Table Book of Remarkable Occurrences Connected with the Counties of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Northumberland and Durham by M.A. Richardson. Published in five volumes in 1844.
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