An account of a devastating mining disaster, celebrating the 175th anniversary of The London Library
A colliery explosion, more disastrous than any that can be remembered, took place on Thursday afternoon, the 18th June, 1835
101 people were killed in the Wallsend Colliery disaster, of whom 76 were young boys. The death of nearly half the workforce was devastating; almost every family in the community was affected. And yet this explosion was just one of 11 serious explosions at the colliery in 53 years. Mining has always been a notoriously dangerous industry: since the opening of the first coal mine in the UK in 1575, thousands of miners have died in gas explosions, roof cave-ins and flooding. Sir Humphry Davy’s invention of the safety lamp in 1815 did reduce the numbers of underground explosions and gassings, but even as recently as 2011, four miners were killed in a mine in Wales.
The last pit at Wallsend Colliery was closed in 1935, and the last deep pit mine in the UK closed in 2015.
A Full Account of the Dreadful Explosion of Wallsend Colliery by which 101 Human Beings Perished! is part of “Found on the Shelves”, published with The London Library. The books in this series have been chosen to give a fascinating insight into the treasures that can be found while browsing in The London Library. Now celebrating its 175th anniversary, with over seventeen miles of shelving and more than a million books, The London Library has become an unrivalled archive of the modes, manners and thoughts of each generation which has helped to form it.
