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John Roper
| Age: | 16 |
| Died: | 20th Sep 1857 |
| Accident: | 20th Sep 1857 |
| Year Born: | abt. 1841 |
| Colliery: | Trimdon Grange |
| Company: | |
| Occupation: | Fireman |
| Notes: | boiler exploded |
| Buried: | [not known] |
| Category: |
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| Description | |
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On Sunday the 20th September, a boiler exploded at Trimdon Grange Colliery; it was the middle one of five boilers, all connected together, and loaded at 35 lbs. per square inch. They supplied steam to work a pumping engine on the surface, and a hauling engine placed underground.
The boiler was generally of good 3/8 inch iron, but there was one plate of inferior quality, particularly where its overlap formed the outer plate of a longitudinal seam in the under part of the back end of the boiler.
The boiler was of the cylindrical form with hemispherical ends, 32 feet long, and four feet ten inches in diameter. It was also (as also were each of the other four boilers connected with it) furnished with two safety valves, one four, and the other three inches in diameter, and a common float water gauge; there was also a steam gauge in connexion with the boilers. The load on the safety valves was, as has been stated, 35 lbs. per square inch.
The boiler had been cleaned and examined by the master blacksmith twelve days prior to the occurrence of the explosion, when a new plate was put into it, where a leak had taken place.
The feed pump and apparatus connected with it were found to be in good order after the explosion, and the feed valves screwed down, indicating that the boiler was not being fed at the time of the explosion, although the engine had been working at the time when, and for three quarters of an hour before, it happened, after having been previously standing two or three hours.
No leakage had been observed in the boiler immediately before the explosion, and there was evidence to the effect that none of the plates were found unusually hot directly after the explosion, nor did they show indications of having been unduly heated. One of the outside boilers was being fed at the time of the explosion, the feed valves of all the others being closed.
The engine man stated that he had examined one of the safety valves on the boiler only about five minutes before it exploded, and then found it in proper working order, but since the safety valves on the othr boilers in connexion with it, may be considered as escapes from this boiler also, there is no reason to suppose that the explosion arose from the sticking of the safety valves.
An examination made after the explosion led me to the conclusion that the boiler had burst by the ordinary working pressure ; in the first place, at a longitudinal seam at the back part of the boiler, on its under side ; the iron forming the overlap of the seam being exceedingly brittle and crystalline in its texture, probably arising from long exposure to the fire ; the effects of which might have been enhanced by the double thickness of plate at the part, and the occasional accumulation of sediment. As soon as a separation took place, the pressure on the plates on each side of and adjoining the opening appeared to have torn the boiler, and the excess of pressure on the upper side opposite the opening thus formed had raised the boiler from its seat, where it had finally separated into three parts, which were blown many yards away from its site ; the two adjoining boilers were rolled laterally out of their seats.
The plates in this boiler were nearly of their primitive thickness of three-eighths of an inch, notwithstanding that the original plates in the bottom of the boiler, which had not been removed, must have been exposed to the action of the heated air for a period of about eleven or twelve years ; and this long exposure appears to have had the effect of reducing the tenacity of the iron at those parts where a double plate intervenes between the heated air and the water in the inside of the boiler, rendering it crystalline in its structure, and in fact almost converting it from its original nature of wrought iron into that of cast iron. This change in the nature and tenacity of boiler plate, but of too frequent occurrence, and not easy of detection by the ordinary means of examining boilers, points to the propriety of renewing all the plates of boilers exposed to the fire and heated air, and carbonic acid gas, within some limited period, without waiting for either leakage or the detection of actual deterioration of the quality of the iron composing them before doing so.
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| Related Articles | |
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| Pub. Date | Article (Newspaper) |
|---|---|
| 20 Sep 1857 | Fatal Boiler Explosion in Durham (Illustrated London News) |
| 23 Sep 1857 | Fatal Boiler Explosion in Durham (The Times) |
| 25 Sep 1857 | Trimdon Grange Boiler Explosion (Durham Advertiser) |
| 26 Sep 1857 | Fatal Boiler Explosion in Durham (Illustrated London News) |
| 26 Sep 1857 | Fatal Boiler Explosion In Durham (Newcastle Guardian and Tyne Mercury) |
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| Sources | |
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- 1857 Mines Inspectors Report
- Illustrated London News
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| Researchers | |
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