An account of the dreadful explosion in Wallsend Colliery, on the 18th June, 1835, to which is added a list of explosions, inundations, &c. which have occurred in the Coal Mines of Northumberland and Durham ... : y John Sykes.
- Sykes, John, 1781 or 1782-1837
- Date:
- [1835?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An account of the dreadful explosion in Wallsend Colliery, on the 18th June, 1835, to which is added a list of explosions, inundations, &c. which have occurred in the Coal Mines of Northumberland and Durham ... : y John Sykes. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![was more dangerous than the Main Seam; but witness had no apprehension in working in the mine. Was working with John Bell and four other men in the broken on the 17th and 18th of June. [The witness here corroborated the other witnesses as to the state of the workings on the 17th, and proceeded.] On the 18th, he was working back to back with John Bell, and witness’s Davy did not fire, nor did he see any other lamp fire. He observed to his partner, when his shift came round, “ the pit has behaved very canny to dayand thought he had never wrought a pleasanter day’s work. The pit was in a very workable state. Charles Swan was working between 10 and 12 yards of witness. Has seen the mine in as bad a state as it was on the 17th, on one or two other occasions; it was caused in each instance by a fall. In one instance the Davy-lamps fired. John Dawtson lives at Swan-row. Is a hewer, and has been employed at the colliery for 30 years. Has worked in the Bensham seam 7 or 8 years. Considers it to be a very dangerous seam. Has known partial explosions of gas take place there, but no person injured, except on occasion of the two heavy misfortunes. Has known, in the east narrow boards where the coal is now working, the men be provided with wet cloths round a stick, to douse out the fire. Remembers, on the second day after he went into the east judds to work, seeing the lamps in such a state that he thought they should not be continued there. Went and sought the deputy, and told him. The deputy instantly appointed a trapper to a door, which made it safer to work by the admission of fresh air. This witness, it was understood, concluded the evidence which it was deemed neces- sary to call as to the state of the mine, but an anxiety was evinced, by the Coroner and Jury, to visit those of the survivors who were competent to give their testimony. It was therefore arranged that the foreman, in company with some other gentlemen of the Jury, should visit the houses of the poor people, and report the result to the Coroner and Jurors on Monday. The inquest was again adjourned, at half-past eleven o’clock at night, to Monday. Monday, Junk 29. The inquest was resumed this day, at 12 o’clock, when the following evidence was adduced:— Mr James M’Intyre, Surgeon, said,—I attend this colliery as a surgeon. I have examined several of the bodies which have been recovered since the accident. Some of them were very severely scorched; others had no marks upon them. The death of the latter had been caused by suffocation, from inhaling carbonic acid gas; others, I understand, had their bodies much mutilated; 3 men and a boy* were brought up alive on Saturday the 20th inst., at about 10 o’clock at night. Two of them I con- sider safe; the other two are yet in a very weak state, but 1 have hopes of their recovery. One of the latter had a leg amputated above the knee. They are all too weak to be removed, but two of them (Brown and Morallee) are competent to give evidence. * John Reed, rolley-way man; Robert Morallee, door-keeper, 70 years of age ; John Brown, hewer; and Martin Delap, or Middleton, a boy, who had been miraculously preserved, were brought out of the mine at ten o’clock on Saturday night. They were all more or less burnt, and the intellects of two of them appeared to be deranged. It was deemed necessary to amputate one of Reed’s legs. These poor fellows had been under ground, at a depth of one hundred and forty-five fathoms, for sixty-five hours— fifty-six hours of which they had literally been entombed alive. They did not appear to have suffered from, hunger,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22485302_0023.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
