Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	18th April 1857
Colliery:	Farnacres
Cause:	Explosion
Lives Lost:	2

Two men killed at Farnacres Colliery, near Gateshead, by explosion.

This took place at the re-opening of the old colliery at the depth of 45 fathoms from the surface. They had fixed a scaffold, and were setting in to gain the Harvey or upper seam, the shaft being bratticed down nearly to the surface of the water 14 fathoms below the scaffold.

At this scaffold they had most imprudently left an open space in the brattice, through which the air passed, thus leaving the shaft below (14 fathoms) without ventilation, although they were aware that the inflammable gas from the old workings of the lower seam was forcing itself through the water, whilst the lower part of the shaft (although. bratticed) was entirely without ventilation, and they worked at and about the scaffold with naked lights. Under those circumstances no wonder that an explosion should take place, the effect of which being that one man was blown down the shaft, and the other was so severely burnt that he died shortly afterwards. The latter was a sort of manager, and freely admitted upon his deathbed that it occurred in consequence of his own imprudence in not using the safety lamp, or in not arranging the ventilation so as to reach the top of the water, and so preserve the shaft from latent gas.

Source:

1857 Mines Inspectors Report

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