Just after 11.30am on May 25, 1812, at Felling, Gateshead, a deep, low boom shook the ground for miles around. Fears that there had been an accident at the local coal mine soon proved to be well-founded.
The writer M.A. Richardson wrote some years later: “As soon as the explosion was heard, the wives and children of the workmen ran to the working pit; wildness and terror were pictured in every countenance. The crowds from all sides soon collected to the number of several hundreds; some crying out for a husband, others for a parent or son, and all deeply affected with an a mixture of horror, anxiety, and grief.”
It's 210 years since a huge blast ripped through Felling Colliery, killing 92 men and boys out of the 128 who worked there. The pit was located where Mulberry Street stands today, behind the town’s modern-day Metro station.
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In the early 19th century as Britain was transforming rapidly from being an agricultural into an industrial nation, workers’ rights were non-existent and life came cheap. It was a time when children worked often shoulder-to-shoulder with their fathers in dangerous, unforgiving coal mines.
More than two centuries on, it's impossible to comprehend what impact the mass tragedy would have had on a simple, close-knit working class community with little help at hand. There would be subsequent losses of life at Felling Colliery but the 1812 disaster was by far the most devastating.
In the long run, the disaster prompted the Government to investigate accidents and to implement safety measures in mines. It also inspired a then unknown engineer George Stephenson, from Wylam, Northumberland, to design a safety lamp with air fed through narrow tubes, down which a flame could not move. Scientist Humphry Davy, meanwhile, devised another safety lamp where the flame was surrounded by iron gauze.
An historical novel Holocaust At The Felling , by Bernard W Waugh, published by Authorhouse, provides a fictional account of the disaster set in the context of the age. Bernard pointed out: "It wasn't until I retired and had time to research the disaster that I found numerous Felling links with Trafalgar, Waterloo, the Stephensons, and Sir Humphry Davy."
Back in 1812, the deadly blast could be heard and felt miles away, and the nearby village of Heworth was covered in a sheet of dust so thick that footprints were left in it. Nobody entered the wrecked pit for six weeks. The bodies were recovered slowly over the course of the summer.
Of the 92 who died, 91 were buried at St Mary’s Church in Heworth, today situated a stone’s throw from the Felling Bypass and just across the road from Heworth Metro Interchange. Close to the church’s main entrance gate, you’ll find the names of the dead on a simple, nine-foot tall memorial. Most are buried in a mass grave, side by side and two coffins deep.
Of those killed at Felling, 27 were between the ages of eight and 14. The death roll makes grim reading. Four members of the Bainbridge family: Thomas, aged 53; Matthew, aged 19; Thomas, aged 17; and George, aged 10. Four members of the Pearson family: aged from 64 to 10. Four members of the Wilson family: aged 20, 25, 30 and 32. Three members of the Gordon family: Robert, 40, Joseph, 10, and Thomas, eight. And so the tragic list goes on.
In 2012, 200 years after the disaster, a commemorative plaque was unveiled on the external wall of St Mary’s churchyard, close to the memorial. Felling Colliery closed in 1931.
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