Mining Disasters
The South Yorkshire Coalfield has suffered some the worst mining disasters and mining accidents in Great Britain and the largest disaster in terms of fatalities in England. Some notable disasters either for their effect outside the region or scale:
- Huskar Pit Disaster: The pit flooded during a rainstorm in 1838 and 26 children were drowned. This disaster led to the 1842 commission on the employment of children and women in mines which resulted in the banning of female and child labour underground.
- Warren Vale Colliery: A firedamp explosion caused by naked flame in 1851 resulted in the death of 52 miners. At the inquest the coroner insisted on there being an increase in the number of mines inspectors in the district.
- Lower Elsecar Colliery: A firedamp explosion in 1852 resulted in the death of 12 miners. In response to this explosion, Benjamin Biram the collieries mining engineer fitted the first underground fan to improve ventilation.
- The Oaks explosion: A series of firedamp and coal dust explosions that resulted in the death of 361 men and boys. This was the worst colliery disaster in the United Kingdom until the Senghenydd Colliery Disaster disaster in 1913 and is to date the worst in England.
Read more about this topic: South Yorkshire Coalfield
Famous quotes containing the words mining and/or disasters:
“For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish or a German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making “ladies” dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)
“Those who escape death in great disasters are surely destined for good fortune later.”
—Chinese proverb.