Safety Lamp - Timeline of The Development of The Safety Lamp

Timeline of The Development of The Safety Lamp

1760 (1760)

Spedding patents his steel mill.

June 9, 1785 (1785-06-09)

Wallsend colliery explosion. Caused by a Spedding mill.

May 25, 1812 (1812-05-25)

Felling pit disaster claimed 92 lives. This was the final stimulus to both Stephenson and (indirectly) Davy to start their researches.

October 10, 1812 (1812-10-10)

Serious explosion (24 lives lost) at Mill Pit in Herrington near Sunderland.

May 20, 1813 (1813-05-20)

William Allen announces William Reid Clanny's lamp to the Royal Society of Arts in London. The original lamp was subsequently refined and reduced in weight to 34 ounces (960 g).

1815 (1815)

Clanny lamp tried out at Mill Pit, Herrington and found to be impractical.

October 21, 1815 (1815-10-21)

Oil lamp delivered to George Stephenson for safety lamp trials.

November 3, 1815 (1815-11-03)

Sir Humphry Davy announces his lamp to a meeting of the Royal Society in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.

November 4, 1815 (1815-11-04)

Stephenson tests improved lamp (to give more light) at Killingworth colliery.

November 9, 1815 (1815-11-09)

Davy presents the paper describing his lamp.

November 30, 1815 (1815-11-30)

Further improved lamp tested by Stephenson.

December 5, 1815 (1815-12-05)

Stephenson lamp presented to the Philosophical and Literary Society of Newcastle.

January 9, 1816 (1816-01-09)

First trial of a Davy lamp at Hebburn Colliery.

1816 (1816)

Davy awarded the Rumford Medal and £1,000 by the Royal Society, a £2,000 prize by the country's colliery owners.

1816 (1816)

Colliery owners also award 100 guineas (£105) to Stephenson.

1816 (1816)

Clanny was awarded a medal by the Royal Society of Arts in 1816.

1816 (1816)

Newcastle committee opens a subscription to correct the perceived injustice of the Royal Society awards. £1,000 awarded to Stephenson.

August 5, 1818 (1818-08-05)

Wallsend colliery explosion, four killed. Caused by a Davy lamp.

1852 (1852)

The South Shields Committee concludes that the Davy lamp is "absolutely unsafe", "the cause of some...accidents".

1853 (1853)

Nicholas Wood, President of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, presents the results of experiments on various lamps which concluded that the Davy was safe, but only had a small "margin of danger".

February 16, 1882 (1882-02-16)

Trimdon Grange colliery disaster, 69 men and boys killed. The coroner reporting to the House of Commons adjudged that: "the result of this inquiry is a further proof, if further proof were needed, that the Davy lamp affords no security whatever ... and that its employment ... ought to be absolutely prohibited".

1900 (1900)

Electric lighting in mines.

1930 (1930)

Battery-powered helmet lamps.