104 COLLIERY EXPLOSIONS. CHAP. VII. 



CHAPTEE VII. 



INVENTION or THE " GEOBDY " SAFETY-LAMP. 



EXPLOSIONS of fire-damp were unusually frequent in 

 the coal mines of Northumberland and Durham about 

 the time when George Stephenson was engaged in 

 the construction of his first locomotives. These explo- 

 sions were often attended with fearful loss of life and 

 dreadful suffering to the workpeople. Killing worth 

 Colliery was not free from such deplorable calamities ; 

 and during the time that Stephenson was employed as a 

 brakesman at the West Moor, several " blasts " took 

 place in the pit, by which many workmen were scorched 

 and killed, and the owners of the colliery sustained 

 heavy losses. One of the most serious of these accidents 

 occurred in 1806, not long after he had been appointed 

 brakesman, by which ten persons were killed. Stephen- 

 son was working at the mouth of the pit at the time, 

 and the circumstances connected with the accident made 

 a deep impression on his mind. 1 



Another explosion took place in the same pit in 

 1809, by which twelve persons lost their lives. The 

 blast did not reach the shaft as in the former case ; 

 the unfortunate persons in the pit having been suf- 

 focated by the after-damp. More calamitous still were 

 the explosions which took place in neighbouring col- 

 lieries ; one of the worst being that of 1812, in the 

 Felling Pit, near Gateshead, a mine belonging to Mr. 

 Brandling, by which no fewer than ninety men and 

 boys were suffocated or burnt to death. And a similar 

 accident occurred in the same pit in the year following, 

 by which twenty-two men and boys perished. 



1 See evidence given by him before the Select Committee on Accidents in 

 Mines, 26th June, 1835. 



