1867.] 



The Ventilation of Coal Mines. 



18S 



" Chronicles and Kecords " of the Northern coal trades. This 

 carries us back to 1180, and gives a table of accidents. We have 

 since 1658* imperfect and intermittent records of the colliery 

 explosions, and when the workings in our collieries were far less 

 extensive than they now are, we find some very serious accidents. 



At Fatfield colliery, in Durham, in 1708, sixty-nine lives were 

 lost ; and in 1710 between seventy and eighty perished in the 

 Bensham colliery. Until towards the end of the last century the 

 lists of accidents are few ; not that they did not occur, but it was 

 thought unwise to report them. In 1767, we find in the ' Newcastle 

 Journal ' the following curious paragraph : — "As so many deplorable 

 accidents have lately happened in collieries, it certainly claims the 

 attention of coal-owners to make provision for the distressed widows 

 and fatherless children occasioned by these mines, as the catastrophes 

 from foul air become more common than ever. Yet, as we have 

 been requested to take no particular notice of these things, which, 

 in fact, could have very little good tendency, we drop the further 

 mentioning of it." This paragraph appeared on the 21st of March, 

 and, on the 27th of the same month, a second explosion occurred at 

 Fatfield colliery, already mentioned, by which 39 men were killed. 



Since that period the most serious accidents from explosions, 

 in the great Northern coalfield, have been the following : — 



1778. Chartershaugh Colliery 

 1791. Picktree 

 „ Harraton 

 1799. Lumley 

 1805. Oxclose 

 Hebburn 

 3812. Felling 

 1813. Fatfield 

 1815. Newbottle 

 1817. Harraton 

 1821. Wallsend 

 1823. Eainton 

 1830. Jarrow 

 1833. Spring well 

 1835. Wallsend 

 1839. Hilda Wallsend 



1844. Haswell 



1845. Jarrow 

 1849. Hebburn 

 1851. Wallsend 

 1860. Burradon 

 1860. Kisca Black Vein 



In 1815, 75 men were drowned in Heaton colliery by an inun- 

 dation, and in 1862, 204 men perished in Hartley colliery by suf- 

 focation : the shaft having been closed by the breaking of an im- 

 mense pumping-engine beam, one-half of which fell into it. 



* 'Transactions of the North of England Institute of Mining Engineer?, 

 vol. xv., 1865-6. 



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