The Mauricewood Colliery Disaster, occurred at the Mauricewood pit, near Penicuik, Midlothian, Scotland on 5 September 1889. A total of 63 miners were killed. [1] At the time the mine was owned by the Shotts Iron Company Ltd.
On 5 September 1889 at around noon sections of the wood lining of a ventilation shaft ignited and the ensuing fire spread to a nearby coal seam, making an escape on the 239m deep main shaft impossible. [1] At that time 70 men and boys were working underground, of which 63 died and 7 survived. [2] The underground fire took four days to extinguish. It was not until 16 March 1890 that all the bodies of the victims were recovered.
The cause of the fire was never determined although it led to the pit being closed which caused major losses to the two local railway lines, the Penicuik Railway and the Edinburgh, Loanhead and Roslin Railway. [3]
A memorial to those lost their lives was erected on the centenary of the disaster in 1989 and stands just off Mauricewood Road. [4]
Dorothy Alexander's novel The Mauricewood Devils (2016) deals with the responses of the women left behind by the men who died in the Mauricewood Pit. [5]
The King's Cross fire occurred in 1987 at King's Cross St Pancras tube station in London, England, causing 31 fatalities. It began under a wooden escalator before spreading into the ticket hall in a flashover.
A mining accident is an accident that occurs during the process of mining minerals or metals. Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground coal mining, although accidents also occur in hard rock mining. Coal mining is considered much more hazardous than hard rock mining due to flat-lying rock strata, generally incompetent rock, the presence of methane gas, and coal dust. Most of the deaths these days occur in developing countries, and rural parts of developed countries where safety measures are not practiced as fully. A mining disaster is an incident where there are five or more fatalities.
Penicuik is a town and former burgh in Midlothian, Scotland, lying on the west bank of the River North Esk. It lies on the A701 midway between Edinburgh and Peebles, east of the Pentland Hills.
Abercanaid is a small village in the county borough of Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, Wales, United Kingdom with a population of about 5,060. It is situated 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south of Merthyr town centre and is west of Pentrebach, across the River Taff and north of Troedyrhiw. The Taff Trail runs through the village, adjacent to the path of the disused Glamorganshire Canal, which was an important in transporting iron and coal during the industrial boom in which the South Wales Valleys prospered.
The Oaks explosion, which happened at a coal mine in West Riding of Yorkshire on 12 December 1866, remains the worst mining disaster in England. A series of explosions caused by firedamp ripped through the underground workings at the Oaks Colliery at Hoyle Mill near Stairfoot in Barnsley killing 361 miners and rescuers. It was the worst mining disaster in the United Kingdom until the 1913 Senghenydd explosion in Wales.
New Hartley is a small village in South East Northumberland, England, adjacent to Hartley, Seaton Delaval and Seaton Sluice. The village is just off the A190 road about 6 miles north of Tynemouth and 4 miles south of Blyth.
The Udston mining disaster occurred in Hamilton, Scotland on Saturday, 28 May 1887 when 73 miners died in a firedamp explosion at Udston Colliery. Caused, it is thought, by unauthorised shot firing the explosion is said to be Scotland's second worst coal mining disaster.
Wingham Colliery railway station was a railway station on the East Kent Light Railway in southeast England. It was intended to serve Wingham Colliery, a short distance to the south, but the mine was aborted without producing any coal. The railway then tried to develop a passenger business, extending the line towards Wingham Town with the long-term aim of reaching Canterbury, but ran out of money before they did so.
Hopkinstown is a small village to the west of Pontypridd in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales, alongside the River Rhondda. Hopkinstown is a former coalmining and industrial community, now a district in the town of Pontypridd within the Rhondda electoral ward. Neighbouring settlements are Pwllgwaun, Trehafod and Pantygraigwen, and the sub-districts of Troed-Rhiw-Trwyn and Gyfeillion.
Chatterley Whitfield Colliery is a disused coal mine on the outskirts of Chell, Staffordshire in Stoke on Trent, England. It was the largest mine working the North Staffordshire Coalfield and was the first colliery in the UK to produce one million tons of saleable coal in a year.
The Knockshinnoch disaster was a mining accident that occurred in September 1950 in the village of New Cumnock, Ayrshire, Scotland. A glaciated lake filled with liquid peat and moss flooded pit workings, trapping more than a hundred miners underground. For several days rescue teams worked non-stop to reach the trapped men. Most were eventually rescued three days later, but 13 died. The disaster was an international media event.
Bedford Colliery, also known as Wood End Pit, was a coal mine on the Manchester Coalfield in Bedford, Leigh, Lancashire, England. The colliery was owned by John Speakman, who started sinking two shafts on land at Wood End Farm in the northeast part of Bedford, south of the London and North Western Railway's Tyldesley Loopline in about 1874. Speakman's father owned Priestners, Bankfield, and Broadoak collieries in Westleigh. Bedford Colliery remained in the possession of the Speakman family until it was amalgamated with Manchester Collieries in 1929.
Gibfield Colliery was a coal mine owned by Fletcher, Burrows and Company in Atherton, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England.
The Edinburgh, Loanhead and Roslin Railway (ELRR) was a railway line south of Edinburgh, Scotland, built primarily to serve mineral workings, although passenger trains were operated. It is also known as the Glencorse Branch of the North British Railway. It opened from a junction at Millerhill on the Waverley Route, to Roslin in 1874 and was extended to a location near Penicuik to serve Glencorse Barracks and a colliery in 1877 and to Penicuik Gas Works in 1878.
The Penicuik Railway was a railway line in Midlothian, Scotland, serving paper mills located on the River North Esk. It opened in 1872 and a substantial residential passenger traffic built up. The line was 41⁄2 miles long.
Haydock Collieries were collieries situated in and around Haydock on the Lancashire Coalfield, England. The company which operated the collieries was Richard Evans & Co Ltd.
Events from the year 1889 in Scotland.
The Burnley Coalfield is the most northerly portion of the Lancashire Coalfield. Surrounding Burnley, Nelson, Blackburn and Accrington, it is separated from the larger southern part by an area of Millstone Grit that forms the Rossendale anticline. Occupying a syncline, it stretches from Blackburn past Colne to the Yorkshire border where its eastern flank is the Pennine anticline.
Towneley Colliery or Towneley Desmesne was a coal mine on the Burnley Coalfield in Burnley, Lancashire, England. Sunk in the late 1860s, it was linked to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway's Burnley to Todmorden line which became known as the Copy Pit route and, by tramway, to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.
The Diglake Colliery Disaster, was a coal-mining disaster at what was Audley Colliery in Bignall End, North Staffordshire, on 14 January 1895. A flood of water rushed into the mine and caused the deaths of 77 miners. Only three bodies were recovered, with efforts to retrieve the dead hampered by floodwater. 73 bodies are still entombed underground.