Hartley Colliery Disaster

Drawing of the fractured cast iron beam, from the Illustrated London News, 1864

The Hartley Colliery Disaster (also known as the Hartley Pit Disaster) was a disastrous mining accident in Northumberland, England in 1862 in which 220 lives were lost. The disaster arose from a combination of the mine having a single shaft; and the fracture of a metal beam, blocking the shaft.

The disaster

In an age when methane or coal dust and firedamp explosions were common, the tragedy at Hartley Colliery, Northumberland, England was different because it was caused by fracture of a steam engine beam. The accident happened on 16 January 1862 when the huge beam used to de-water the mine suddenly broke, and one end plunged into the shaft of the pit. The colliery was worked by a single shaft, divided into two halves vertically by a brattice consisting of a wooden, airtight partition so that ventilation air could be drawn down one side and exhaled up the other. When the broken half of the beam fell, it demolished the brattice, and created a pile of debris towards the base of the shaft. It entombed 204 men and boys, who could not be rescued, and so suffocated and died.The loss of life was extreme, even by Victorian era coal mining standards, and remains one of the worst mining accidents in England.

An engraving of the fractured beam close up

The cause of the fracture in the beam was attributed to overload from the pump rod system to which one end of the beam was attached. It was already well known at the time, however, that cast iron was susceptible to sudden brittle failure, often from internal defects such as blowholes. Several are visible in the fracture surfaces shown in a detailed engraving (shown at the right). Cast iron was also susceptible to metal fatigue where repeated loading was involved.

A further contributing factor may have been accidental impact damage to the beam when it fell from its supporting jacks during replacement of the main bearings only days before the accident.

Legacy

The disaster captured the nation's attention, as rescuers struggled in vain to rescue the men trapped underground. Queen Victoria sent a message of condolence. The heroism of the volunteers who attempted to rescue the victims was marked by a special medal, the Hartley Disaster Medal. The tragedy also led to a change in the law, requiring all collieries be worked by two shafts.

There is a memorial obelisk, commemorating those who died, in the churchyard at St Alban's church in Earsdon.

See also

• Mining accidents

References

• McCutcheon, John Elliott (1963). The Hartley Colliery Disaster. Seaham [Eng.]: E McCutcheon. OCLC 4858395. http://books.google.com/books?id=8bxaGQAACAAJ. 
• Duckham, Frederick; Duckham, Helen (1973). Great pit disasters: Great Britain, 1700 to the present day. Newton Abbot: David and Charles. ISBN 0-7153-5717-4. 
• Lewis, Peter (2007). Disaster on the Dee: Robert Stephenson's Nemesis of 1847: The Collapse of the Dee Bridge, 1847. Tempus Publishing. ISBN 0-7524-4266-X. http://books.google.com/books?id=I-pbAAAACAAJ. 

Further reading

• "The Hartley Catastrophe". The Mechanics' Magazine (London): p. 43. 24 January 1862. http://books.google.com/books?id=zJsAAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 2011-09-25.  - contemporary news report and analysis
• "The Hartley Catastrophe". The Mechanics' Magazine (London): p. 59. 31 January 1862. http://books.google.com/books?id=zJsAAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 2011-09-25.  - subsequent, more detailed analysis with diagram
• "The causes of the Hartley catastrophe". The Mechanics' Magazine (London): p. 83. 31 January 1862. http://books.google.com/books?id=zJsAAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 2011-09-25.  - report of the coroner's inquest

External links

• The Hartley Mining Disaster at BBC Legacies, Tyne
• Brief history of disaster Near-contemporary account published by T.Fordyce, 1867; at Durham Mining Museum
• Dreadful Colliery Accident in llustrated London News, Jan-Feb 1862 issues