Candles were allowed in the mine and smoking permitted.

The blast at the John Pit in Felling on 25 May 1812 …

The mine was considered by the workmen as a model of perfection in the purity of its air and orderly arrangements. Unknown to Hodgson it was printed in “Dr. As soon as those who led the outcry could be induced to listen patiently to the relation of the appearances attending this accident and the assigned reasons for concluding that the mine was on fire and that the persons in it dead, they seemed to allow that to reach the bodies of the sufferers till the fire should be extinguished was practicable.

Two explosions rocked the colliery, the blast appearing in both pits. May, 1812.

as soon as the cart load of them was seen, the shrieks of the women, who hitherto continued n their houses but now began to assemble about their doors, came on the breeze in slow fitful gusts which presaged a scene of much distress and confusion being soon exhibited near the pit but happily by preventing to them the shocking appearance of a body that had been found, and the ill effects on their own bodies and minds likely to ensue from sufferings themselves, to be hurried away by such violent convulsions of grief, they either returned to their own houses or continued in silence in the neighbourhood of the pit. The account of the Branding Main Explosion. On 24 December 1813 22 miners were killed, another 6 in an explosion on 23 October 1821 and another 6 on 22 January 1847. The underground threw themselves on their faces and kept a firm hold of a strong prop and experienced no other inconvenience from the blast than its lighting up their legs and posing their bodied in various directions, in the manner that waves heave and toss a buoy at sea. REFERENCES The proprietors of the mine gave the strongest assurances to the crowd, that if any project could be framed for the recovery of the men, no expense should be spared in expecting it and if any person could be found who was willing to enter the mine, every facility and help should be afforded him but as they were assured by several of the most eminent viewers in the neighbourhood that the workings of the mine were in an unapproachable state and that any further attempt to explore it would hold out in reward for the undertaking, they would not be an accessory to any man’s death by persuasion of a bribe. Thus the grief of the neighbourhood began to assume an aspect not only too gloomy but irritable. The heaviest part of the matter ejected, such as corves, pieces of wood and small coal, fell near the pits but the dust, borne away on a strong west wind, fell in a continued shower from the pit to a distance of a mile and a half. This provided the power for the ventilation. Two surgeons were also in attendance in case of accidents. The 200th anniversary of a mining disaster which killed 92 men and boys in Gateshead is being commemorated.

a meeting was held at Sunderland on the 1st October 1813 when the Society was instituted and Committee appointed to carry out its objectives. Indeed, it seemed the chief employment of some to make a kind of insane sport of their own and their neighbour’s calamity.
It was recollected that persons had survived similar accidents and when the mine was opened, had been found alive. the concern wore the features of the greatest prosperity and, except for two other there workmen being slightly burned, no accident had before occurred.



Many of the widows and other relatives of the sufferers continued about the mouth of the John Pit during the whole night, hoping to hear the voice of a husband, a son or a brother calling for assistance.

It was one of the worst ever known disasters in the history of coal fields with a survival rate of only 24 percent of the workforce who were an average age of 22.