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March. — The workmen commenced pulling down the old custom house and the houses upon the Mark quay, Sunderland, preparatory to the erection of staithes in connection with the Sunderland and Durham railway. [LRF]

May 1. — A man named Robinson, and five boys, were unfortunately killed at three o'clock on the morning, whilst in the act of descending the pit at Whitley colliery, in consequence of the hook which is appended to the chain not having been properly put into the bow of the corf which the unfortunate sufferers were in, by which oversight they fell from the top to the bottom of the pit, a depth of forty five fathoms. Verdict :— Accidental death, with a deodand of one shilling upon the corf. [LHTB]

June 13. — After several years labour the owners of the Monkwearmouth Colliery (Messrs. Thompson, Pemberton and Co.), succeeded in loading the first vessel placed under their improved modern staith, with a cargo of coals. The workmen on the occasion were profusely regaled with strong ale, and great rejoicing took place throughout the whole of the day. [LHTB]

June 18. — Thursday, about two o'clock in the afternoon, one of those dreadful explosions which have been so lamentably frequent in mining districts, took place at one of Mr. Russell's collieries, at Wallsend, known by the name of the church pit, or Russell's old Wallsend, by which twenty-six men and seventy-five boys lost their lives, leaving twenty-four widows and eighty-three children to bewail their sudden, and, under the circumstances, most sorrowful departure. The number of work people employed in this colliery was about 220, one hundred and five of whom were in the mine at the time of the explosion. The colliery had been viewed in the morning by Mr. Atkinson and his son, under viewers, and it was by them considered perfectly safe and secure in every respect, there not being the least indication of any escape of gas, and at the time of the explosion, there were four overmen and deputies down who had been accustomed to work in the pits for upwards of thirty years. These were among the sufferers. The catastrophe was made known to the banksman by a considerable report, which they spoke of as being like an earthquake, accompanied by a rushing of choke damp to the mouth of the shaft, bringing up with it some of the pitmen's clothes and other light articles from the bottom. There are other two shafts connected with this colliery, in one of which only two men were at work, who say that they felt a slight shock at the time, and soon after a quantity of choke damp. They happily escaped by being drawn up immediately. In the third shaft no one was at work. On the alarm being given the vicinity of the mine was soon thronged with anxious enquirers; and the awful scene of sorrow which ensued, cannot even now be contemplated without exciting feelings of the most painful description. The most strenuous exertions to render immediate assistance to the sufferers were directly made, and eight humane and intrepid individuals volunteered to go down, in the hope of being able to save and bring up some of their companions. After reaching the bottom, however, in attempting to go into the workings, they instantly found themselves being suffocated by the foul air; they had the greatest difficulty in regaining the ropes, and were almost insensible before they could be drawn up again. Such was the dangerous state of the mine, that all further exertions were unavailing, till the following day, Friday, when those creditable efforts were renewed, and 21 bodies brought to bank. The work of humanity was persevered in, day after day, until all the bodies (save that of one poor boy) had been found and taken to their sorrowing friends; and to the astonishment of every one connected with the colliery, on Sunday, four of the unfortunate creatures were found to be alive. They were immediately brought up with the most assiduous care, and eager hopes were infused into the hearts of many, that others would be found who had been similarly favoured. This pleasing hope was, however, soon dispelled. The poor men themselves, thus rescued from a terrible fate, could give no idea of their mode of preservation. For some time they were occasionally delirious, and generally speaking, they had no idea of the time which elapsed between the occurrence of the accident and that of their fortunate rescue. The scene at Wallsend on the Monday afternoon, was especially distressing: numbers were buried there, and it was a painful sight to see two and even three bodies brought from the same house, and borne away amid the agonized cries of their relations. On Monday, June 22nd an inquest was held on the bodies of the sufferers, and, by adjournment, on the 23rd, 25th, and again on the 27th, during which time some of the jurors visited those persons who were saved, and heard what they had to say respecting the accident, but they were unable to give any account of great interest with regard to this melancholy event; in fact the origin of the accident remained as much a mystery as at the moment of its occurrence. Verdict :— Accidental death. [LHTB]

July. — This month, whilst some workmen were opening out an old pit, near Whickham, which had been closed upwards of 80 years, they found at the bottom, 28 fathoms, a live toad, which is now in the possession of John Watson, Whickham. It is still more singular how the animal could exist in the foul air, as the men had to erect a brattice to ventilate the shaft before they could enter. [LHTB]

July 2. — The first cargo of coals from Haswell colliery was shipped at Seaham, when great rejoicings took place. A public dinner was held in the afternoon, at the Lord Seaham Inn. The winning of this colliery cost nearly £100,000. [LRL]

July 9. — Thursday, that stupendous undertaking, the Hartlepool docks and harbour, was opened for the shipment of coal and merchandize. The day being extremely fine, great rejoicings took place. The first shipment of coals was made in the Britannia, of Sunderland. Having taken her cargo of coal on board, she proceeded to sea, amid the ringing of bells, the firing of cannon, and the acclamations of those who had assembled to witness the ceremony. The coals were from the new colliery at Thornley, whence they were conveyed along the railway to Hartlepool. [LHTB]

September 15. — John Jobling was unfortunately killed on Lord Durham’s railway, near Bishopwearmouth, by several waggons running over him. What is remarkable, his son lost his life in the same manner a few years before ; also his son-in-law. [LRF]

October 8. — At night an immense mass of limestone rock projecting from the south bank of the river Wear, near Lord Durham’s drops, fell with a tremendous force into the river. Fortunately no vessel was in the berth at the time or inevitable destruction must have ensued. The weight of the stone was supposed to be about six hundred tons. [LRF]

October 12. — About eight o’clock a.m., William Dickson, esq., of Alnwick, and Mr. T. J. Turnbull, clerk to the magistrates, had a very narrow escape from serious injury. Those gentlemen were in a chaise on their return to Newcastle from Tynemouth. On reaching the railway upon which the coals are conveyed from the Cramlington and Seghill collieries to the river Tyne, and which crosses the road about two miles from Shields, they were alarmed by observing from the window of the vehicle a train of loaded waggons coming along the self-acting inclined plane, so near as to render it probable the chaise would be run down. The driver, however, whipped his horses and used great exertions, but, notwithstanding which, the foremost waggon struck the hinder part of the chaise, broke in the panel, and overturned the vehicle into the road. The shock was so tremendous as to upset the first waggon of the train, and throw several others off the railroad. The driver of the chaise was likewise thrown down with great violence, and injured in his head and thigh. Had the chaise been struck in the centre, instead of near the hind part, the consequence must have been fatal to Mr. Dickson and Mr. Turnbull. [LRF]

November 19. — The following distressing accident occurred at Burdon Main colliery, situated a little to the westward of North Shields, on the 19th of November, 1835. On the afternoon of that day (Thursday), a little after three o'clock, some of the workmen in the Low Main seam of the middle pit were alarmed by what they too truly knew to be an explosion of foul air in the adjoining workings, and on proceeding to the spot they found that, as a deputy named James Campbell, was going his usual rounds to see that everything was safe, an accumulation of foul air had taken fire at his candle and produced the melancholy accident by which eleven human beings were instantly deprived of existence. The mine, it appeared, from what transpired on the inquest, had always been so uncommonly free from foul air that the men invariably wrought with candles — a lamp never having been used in the workings. Unlike the generality of such accidents, the origin of the present explosion was soon discovered; it was found to have been caused by the negligence, or occasional absence of a boy named Arkley, only ten years of age, and who was one of the sufferers. This poor boy had neglected to close a door, which it was his sole business to keep shut, and which, even by standing open fifteen minutes, would occasion a sufficient accumulation of foul air to cause the explosion. The force of the blast had been so exceedingly powerful that nothing seemed to have been able to resist its progress. Some of the stoppings were blown down; the trap door above mentioned, together with the brick walling on each side of it, was likewise carried to a considerable distance; and even the props, which present very little resisting surface, were in several instances swept away. Three men, and eight young men and boys, fell victims to the scorching flame, or died from the effects of after-damp. Fortunately, when the explosion had proceeded to this extent, its ravages ceased; and on reaching the adjoining district, the good air speedily exhausted the desolating power of the blast, though the noise and the rushing wind which it occasioned soon indicated to the other miners what had happened. No time was lost in endeavouring to get at the poor sufferers; and at considerable risk from the after-damp, the whole of the bodies were in a short time removed. In the course of the investigation, before the coroner, that gentleman observed to Mr. Johnson of Willington, that there was one circumstance which had frequently occurred to him, and that was the impropriety of trusting these doors to such very young boys, when so very much depended — both of life and property — upon their care and attention, and enquired whether it would not be greatly to the advantage of coal-owners to employ men of thirty or forty years of age — men who knew what was committed to their charge — to take care of such doors, supposing even an extra sum was given to them for doing it. Mr. Johnson said it was a subject which had frequently engaged the attention of viewers and others having the management of coal-mines; that they had no means of bettering themselves. They had invariably found that boys from ten to fourteen years of age were far more tractable, attentive, and obedient than boys of a more advanced age. They had tried old men, and they found them worse than even the boys — not that they were wilfully negligent — but they lost their faculties and dozed away their time in sleep; and he did not think they could find a man of middle age who would undertake to fill such an office; there was not one about the colliery who would not think himself degraded in such a situation. The coroner thought is was a pity that they did not see more clearly what was for their own good. Verdict accidental death. [LHTB]

November 23. — Coal was first shipped from South Hetton colliery at Hartlepool, the railway being opened on the main line to that colliery as well as to Thornley. There were from 30 to 40 sail of ships in the harbour at the time. [LHTB]

December 5. — At the Moot-hall, Castle Garth, on the above day, Thomas Lightford, a pitman in the employment of the Rev. R. H. Brandling, the owner of Gosforth colliery, was brought before Charles John Bigge, esq., a magistrate for the county of Northumberland, charged with misconduct towards his employer, in acting contrary to his instructions and those of his agents. In certain districts of the colliery the pillars of coal formerly left to support the roof of the mine were now being worked off or taken away, the effects of removing which pillars producing what is termed "a goafe," or large space beyond the working walls, which it is impossible to ventilate thoroughly; a strong current of pure air is carried round by the face of the pillars of coal where the men are working, which receives, without any material deterioration, the regular discharge of carbonated hydrogen gas from the goafe, but in addition to this regular supply, on any diminution in the pressure of the atmospheric current (as indicated by a fall in the barometer) a great increase in the discharge invariably takes place, which continues until the foul air in the goafe re-establishes an equilibrium with the atmosphere. There is likewise occasionally a sudden eruption of gas from the goafe caused by the shrinking or falling in of the strata above, which materially lessens the space of the goafe, and produces an instantaneous outburst of "foulness." To guard against those sudden discharges of gas, safety lamps are exclusively used in those parts of the mine where the men are engaged in working the pillars, as also those into which the air is conveyed after quitting the pillar districts. On the morning previous to this day, the viewer, Mr. Matthew Liddell, after examining some of the whole mine districts, proceeded to the district where the prisoner was employed as a "putter," where the men are very extensively employed in pillar working. Mr. Liddell was then informed by the deputy (who had the superintendence of that part of the mine under the overman) that the prisoner had, a few minutes before, unscrewed the top from off one of the safety lamps, by which the lives of all the men and lads employed in that part of the mine (about 70 in number) were placed in imminent peril. Mr. Liddell caused the man to be brought before the magistrate, who sentenced him to three months imprisonment and hard labour in the house of correction at Tynemouth, expressing a hope that no colliery agent would ever again allow him, after such conduct, to work in the pits : the possible consequences of such negligence was dreadful to contemplate, and it did not in the least lessen his offence, the fact of the mine being at the time free from any dangerous admixture of gas, as the prisoner could be no judge of its state. [LHTB]

 

 

 

• LHTB — 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.
• LRF — Local Records or Historical Register of Remarkable Events by T. Fordyce, Published in 1867
• LRL — Local Records or Historical Register of Remarkable Events by John Latimer, Published in 1857