3-052-398 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Leycett Colliery Disaster, near Newcastle-Under-Lyne: the explosion, 1880. Explosion Staffordshire, '...on Wednesday of last week, by which sixty or seventy lives were lost...[View of] the appearance of the actual moment of the explosion, viewed from a short distance above ground...That part of the Colliery, belonging to the Crewe Iron and Coal Company, in which this disaster took place, is the Fair Lady Pit, opened about a twelvemonth ago; and its levels were driven through the seven-foot Bambury seam of coal, which is very "fiery" or productive of carburetted hydrogen gas, called by the miners "fire-damp."...On the day of this recent calamity, seventy-seven men and boys went down to begin work in the morning...The explosion of gas occurred at half-past eight in the morning, with a great noise, which alarmed the inhabitants of the neighbourhood three miles round. A new ventilating fan had been fitted up at the pit's mouth...The roof of this fan was blown off, but the machine itself was uninjured, and the ventilation below was so far maintained that persons could go down with safety; but the guide-rods for the descending carriage were broken, and it was several hours before they could reach the bottom, using ladders for part of the way'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.