The Oaks explosion

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The Oaks explosion was one of the worst colliery disasters in the United Kingdom. The pit exploded on 12 December 1866, ultimately killing 388 miners and their would-be rescuers. The Oaks was one of the largest coal mines working the rich Barnsley seam in Yorkshire, and the coal was known to be very gassy. This same pit had suffered a previous disaster on 5 March 1847, when a blast killed 73 men and boys, and other pits working the same seam had experienced similar accidents. The management were fully aware of the problem of methane gas, and there were strict rules on use of safety lamps. Ventilation was good, and carried the gas that emerged from the seam away to be dispersed safely in the open air above. However, it was that gas that caused not only the initial very large explosion on 12 December but also another seventeen explosions that rocked the pit afterwards.

The first explosion killed 361 miners working in the pit that day, and the following morning another explosion killed a further 27 miners in a rescue party. The investigation that followed was thorough, but inevitably ambiguous about the source of the first ignition. Some survivors mentioned an exceptionally violent blast just before the main explosion, caused deliberately by driving a drift near the main seam. It is possible that this blast may have reached gassy regions in the workings and triggered the firedamp and coal dust explosion that devastated the rest of the pit. The accident was the worst in British mining history until the Senghenydd Colliery Disaster, in south Wales in 1913.