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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![The Foreman of the Jury remarked, that they had visited the men and the boy whose lives had been providentially spared, and Mr. MTntyre’s account of their state was perfectly correct. Two of them were capable of giving evidence; but Reed and Middleton were in great danger. The Coroner asked if they could give any satisfactory account of the cause of the misfortune ? Mr. Eastersy said, No ; they had given an opinion of where the fire came from ; but they could say nothing as to its origin.—[The two next witnesses were ex- amined at the suggestion of these men], Robert Giles, said,—I am a hewer at Wallsend Colliery. I was down the pit on the 18th, working in the Bensham seam. I was working at the broken in the north- west quarter. I could find no fault while I was down the mine. The air was as good as usual ; it is commonly warm. There was no fall in that quarter. I left the pit about 10 in the forenoon, when it was in its usual state. My lamp did not fire that morning. 1 had only been at work in this colliery for 12 days. My lamp never did fire while working where I was on the morning of the accident. I never heard of any of the other men’s lamps firing in that quarter. Robert Usher deposed,—I am a hewer, and live at Wallsend. I have worked in the Bensham seam for these 14 years past. On the 18th June, I was working at the broken in the west district. I felt no difference in the ventilation; the air appeared just as usual. There was no fall where I worked. My lamp did not fire. For two months past, I had been working at that place, and my lamp did not fire at any time. I cannot form any idea where the fire originated. John Atkinson, Sen. re-examined.—The furnace for ventilating the colliery is about 23 yards from the shaft bottom, at the A. and B. pits. The gas is conveyed up the shaft about 4 fathoms above the furnace ; it cannot come in contact with the flame. I have never known the gas to fire at the furnace at the B. pit of Wallsend colliery. Two years and a half ago, a man was killed by an explosion of gas, at the C. pit. It was at the furnace where it happened; and the gas, in all probability, fired there. This furnace has not been altered. It has not been burning since that time. A new furnace has been built at the B. pit, and it was shifted further back than where the old one stood, as a matter of precaution, and to be farther out of the way of the gas. We have been employed in heightening the drift from the G. pit in a line with the A. pit, at about 460 yards from the G. pit. The dumb drift was about 20 yards from the part of the drift we were engaged in heightening on the day of this accident, and it runs nearly parallel with the stone drift. There were two men found at the place where the drift was being heightened ; they had been employed in doing so. There was no oil lamp nearer that place than 140 yards. The men working there had candles. The stones that were got from the roof were stowed in a double head-way about 40 yards from the place where they w ere working. The men used gunpowder to blast the stone from the roof of the rolley-way. There were a main-door and a tram-way main-door in this vicinity; one door would be about 15 yards from the place where they were blasting with powder, and the other door about 10 yards further on. The nearest of those doors would be about 70 yards off the old workings or waste, which are filled with gas, and which, as Mr. Buddie described, are complete gasometers. In firing the blast, it is not likely that the doors would be thrown open by the concussion; but if they were left open, there would be danger from blasting with gunpowder. I cannot say whether these doors where open or shut. I saw the men working at the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22485302_0024.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
