182 
OF THOSE WHO HAVE PERISHED IN MINES. 
REPORT. 
The Select Committee appointed to inquire 
into the nature, cause and extent of those la- 
mentable catastrophes which have occurred 
in the mines of Great Britain, with the view of 
ascertaining and suggesting the means of pre- 
venting the recurrence of similar fatal acci- 
dents, and who were empowered to report the 
minutes of the evidence taken before them to 
the house ; — have inquired into the matter 
referred to them, and have agreed upon the 
following report. — 
Your committee have called before them 
witnesses connected with all the great mining 
districts of the kingdom. They have also 
examined plans, diagrams, and a great va- 
riety of lamps. 
To the evidence which accompanies this 
report, your committee solicit the attention of 
the house. 
Your committee have had ample opportu- 
nity of multiplying proofs of the calamities 
which have occurred in the mines of this 
kingdom'^, by sudden explosions of fire-damp, 
foul-air, or sulphur, all which terms are lo- 
cally applied to carburetted hydrogen gas, 
so copiously evolved in many of those 
mines. t Few collieries are entirely free 
from fire-damp, but in many the quantity 
emitted is so large, that, in spite of skill and 
unremitting attention, the risk is constant and 
imminent. 
Having alluded to the nature and cause of 
the accidents which have taken place, your 
committee proceed to report upon the extent 
of the mischief which has resulted to pro- 
perty and human life. 
The amount of damage sustained by these 
explosions^: is described by several witnesses 
to have been great, and, when estimated in 
connexion with losses arising from interrupted 
trade, enormous ; it is nevertheless rather 
with reference to the cause and interests of 
humanity than in a pecuniary point of view 
that this inquiry has assumed its just import- 
ance. 
Your committee have failed in obtaining 
accurate information as to the number oflives 
lost within a limited period. Many docu- 
ments, however, have been produced, from 
which much correct information on this por- 
tion of their inquiry has been derived. 
In the course of the last session certain re- 
turns were made by the clerks of the peace of 
inquests held by the coroners on parties who 
had met with untimely deaths in the mines of 
England and Wales. These returns were 
very defective: from some counties the required 
information could not be obtained; in others, 
the nature of the accidents reported was not 
mentioned. They gave a total of 954 per- 
sons who had perished during the last twenty- 
five years. The following is a summary ; — 
Lives lost. 
Chester 7 fire-damp and choke damp. 
Cumberland l40 ditto ditto 
Lives lost, 
Derby 19 fire-damp and choke-damp. 
Gloucester.. 3 ditto ditto 
Monmouth.. 3 ditto ditto 
Nottingham.. 18 ditto ditto 
Salop 89 ditto ditto 
Somerset 1 ditto ditto 
Stafford, one district 104 ditto ditto 
Warwick 3 ditto ditto 
YorkNorth Riding 29 ditto ditto 
York, West Riding 23 choke-damp. 
Ditto 93 fire-damp. 
Ditto 230 other accidents not 
[specified. 
Brecon 15 ditto ditto 
Ditto 3 explosions. 
Flint 39 choke-damp and 
fire-damp. 
Lancashire (no re- ^ 
turns for several > 135 ditto ditto 
districts). 3 
954 
Many of the counties and divisions of coun- 
ties from w’hich no returns have been received 
are those wherein your committee believe 
catastrophes have occured, which would have 
materially swelled the catalogue. The coun- 
ties of Durham and Northumberland, it will 
be observed, are omitted. As respect these, 
the most important of all, the exertions of an 
able and indefatigable collector have supplied 
the deficiency. Mr. John Sykes, of Netv 
castle, in his published “ Local Records” of 
those counties, presented the public with a 
list of accidents from an early period.* The 
general correctness of that list has been 
proved ; it was revised and amended by 
Mr. Puddlet, who affixed an asterisk 
opposite the names of the collieries which 
came under his personal notice at the 
times named. Those melancholy details 
are confined to what has happened on 
the banks of the rivers Tyne and Wear 
since the year 1710. It appears that in those 
districts alone, 
There perished 1,479 by explosions 
of fire-damp 
14 by inundations 
37 by other casual- 
ties 
1,600— Total since 17l0 
The list as drawn out furnishes an account, 
from 1810 of 1,125 lives lost ; this, added to 
the general returns already alluded to, (de- 
fective and vastly short of the total, as your 
committee believe them to be,) striking fact 
requires to be particularly pointed out. If 
the year 1816 is assumed as the period when 
Sir Humphry Davy’s lamp came into use, a 
term of eighteen years previous to the intro- 
duction of the lamp, 447 persons lost their 
lives in the counties of Durham and Nor- 
thumberland*, whilst in the latter term of 
eighteen years the fatal accidents amounted 
* 1514.2690.376. t 2030. t 1524. 1666.773. 
Page 224. 
+ 2377.2954. 
