Felling mine disaster

Felling mine disaster was a major mining accident in Britain, claiming 92 lives on 25 May 1812.

The colliery was situated in Felling, Tyne and Wear, part of Gateshead, in what used to be County Durham, and had two shafts about 600 feet deep. It was extended in 1810 by the opening up of a new coal seam, the Low Main seam, and it was here that the explosion which engulfed the pit occurred. The accident was caused by ignition of firedamp, methane, which triggered a coal dust explosion. The explosion travelled through the galleries, and erupted from one of the shafts. At that time, lighting in the pits was hazardous. Open flame lamps could easily ignite the gas, so steel mills were often used to provide weak illumination from sparks, but these too could set off a gas explosion. The alternative was to deliberately destroy gas accumulations in a dangerous operation conducted by a "monk", actually a miner shrouded in a wet blanket who poked a candle on a long pole into gas pockets. His life must have been short, but probably well paid when successful.

Safety lamp

The disaster stimulated a then unknown engineer, George Stephenson, to design a safety lamp, known as the Geordie lamp, with air fed through narrow tubes, down which a flame could not move. It also led scientist, Humphry Davy to devise another safety lamp, the Davy lamp, in which the flame was surrounded by iron gauze. The gauze had to have small spaces so that a flame could not pass through, but could admit methane, which then burned harmlessly inside the lamp. The height of the luminous cone above the flame gave a measure of the methane concentration in the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, the lamps did not prevent further disasters because there were other sources of ignition, such as sparks from metal tools such as picks and shovels and later, electrical equipment and explosives used to blast tunnels. Both lamps could set off explosions if the gauze of the Davy lamp rusted through (very likely in the wet environment of a pit bottom), or the glass on the Geordie lamp fractured. Later devices such as the Mueseler lamp were better protected, but all such lamps gave poor illumination. It was one cause of nystagmus, a disorder of the eyes common among coal miners. It was not until electric safe lamps were introduced at the end of the Victorian period that miners had adequate and safe lights.

The Victims

Inscription on memorial states: "In Memory of the 92 Persons Killed in Felling Colliery 25 May 1812"^[1]

Bibliography

• Helen and Baron Duckham, Great Pit Disasters: Great Britain 1700 to the present day, David & Charles (1973)

References

External links

• Durham Mining Museum - 1812 Felling Colliery Disaster Memorial at St. Mary's Churchyard, Heworth (OS Map 88, Grid Ref NZ286619)

See also

• Humphry Davy
• Mining accident
• George Stephenson