The Hartley Colliery disaster (also known as the Hartley Pit disaster or Hester Pit disaster) was a coal mining accident in Northumberland, England, that occurred on 16 January 1862 and resulted in the deaths of 204 men and boys. The beam of the pit's pumping engine broke and fell down the shaft, trapping the men below. The disaster prompted a change in British law that required all collieries to have at least two independent means of escape.
Collieries
Hartley old pit
Hartley old pit was established in the coastal village of Hartley, Northumberland, (today part of Seaton Sluice) during the 13th century; the earliest existing records date from 1291. The colliery suffered increasingly from flooding as the seams were worked out under the sea and in 1760 the first atmospheric engine was installed, followed later by more powerful engines. Despite these efforts, the flooding became so severe that the old pit was abandoned in 1767.
Hester pit
The coal was sufficiently valuable that the following year a new shaft (A on the diagram) was sunk about 1 mile (1,600 m) inland. The low main seam (F) was reached on 29 May 1846. The colliery was called the New Hartley Colliery and the shaft the Hester Pit. Around the pit a new village grew up that was called New Hartley. Women and very young children (they had to be aged 10 or above) were not employed in the pit and, according to E. Raper (Social and Working Conditions in the village of New Hartley 1845–1900), this gave a higher standard of life for the miners: "the miner in New Hartley would return home after a hard day's work to a warm, clean, comfortable home and usually a substantial hot meal".
In common with many collieries of the period and locality, only one shaft was dug, which was of 12-foot (3.7 m) diameter, at a total cost of about £3,600. Coal, men, and materials travelled up and down the shaft, which also accommodated the pumps. In addition, the shaft provided the vitally important fresh air ventilation and extraction of firedamp.
In collieries with two or more pits (for instance see the description of Felling), one pit was the "downcast pit" down which fresh air travelled, the other the "upcast pit" up which spent air escaped. Within the colliery the air was forced to traverse the whole of the workings by the use of walls of coal left in place, stoppings and traps. In this period, the normal means of creating the updraft needed was by using a furnace in the upcast pit.
With a single shaft colliery this simple arrangement could not be followed, and so a timber brattice (B) was built from the top of the shaft to the bottom. Men and materials passed up and down on the downcast side, the pumps worked in the upcast. At Hartley a furnace was kept burning in the yard seam (E) with the rising hot gases passing up the furnace drift (I) to join and draw foul air up the upcast side of the shaft.
The vulnerability of such an arrangement had already been identified and publicised before the colliery was sunk. An explosion at the St Hilda pit in South Shields in 1839 had led (as the result of a public meeting) to the formation of a committee to consider the prevention of accidents in mines. The Shields Committee issued their report in 1843; it had found that mines in the North-East were unnecessarily at risk of explosions because they were generally inadequately ventilated with too few shafts for the size of the underground workings (a view supported by evidence from George Stephenson, amongst others). The committee's report had specifically argued against the practice for all new works (which it thought Parliament should legislate against), of sinking a single shaft and sub-dividing it by bratticing to separate in- and out-flowing ventilation air (since any explosion destroying the bratticing would destroy the ventilation of the mine and ensure the death by asphyxiation of those underground). It was later estimated that sinking two 8.5-foot (2.6 m) shafts instead of one 12-foot (3.7 m) shaft would have cost an extra £900.
In 1852, the pit was flooded to a depth of 8 fathoms (48 ft; 15 m) by water from the old pit. A powerful steam engine, 'the largest in the county employed in mining purpose', was therefore installed in 1855 to operate pumps to recover the pit. Pumping began in September 1855 (in June 1856 the pumping engine was shown off to a visiting French prince) but two years later the pit was not yet in full production and advertised for sale as 'just reopened'.
The pumps were in three stages. The lowest stage lifted water from a sump connected to an adit below the low main seam up to the yard seam. There, a second stage lifted the water up to a sump in the high main. The pumps were driven by a nominal 300 horsepower (220 kW) beam engine working the pumps directly: the first two stages were driven by the main beam, and the third stage by a subsidiary beam above the pump staple (C). The pit was known as a wet pit and the engine (capable of nine to ten strokes a minute) normally ran at about seven strokes a minute to cope with the water ingress; on loss of pumping the low main would flood within little more than a day from seawater percolating through the roof of the seam from the North Sea above it. Three miners from Hartley were amongst the death toll of an explosion at Burradon in 1860 because (explained the Durham Chronicle) "little work has been doing at Hartley colliery lately owing to an accumulation of water".
At the time of the disaster, the high main had been worked out and was closed off; the yard seam was being worked, but only by a few men (and a pit pony); the workings in the low main seam at Hester Pit were being extended to meet those at the Mill Pit at Seaton Sluice; within the year it would have been possible to escape from Hester Pit via the Mill Pit. In the meantime, a staple was provided within which was a ladder; this allowed escape to the yard seam from the low main should there be a major inrush of water ("the only thing that was feared").
Disaster
On Thursday 16 January 1862 the fore shift went on duty at 02:30. At 10:30 the same morning the back shift were taking over from the fore shift, so most men of both shifts were at the coal face. As the first eight men were ascending, the beam of the pumping engine snapped and fell down the shaft. Although much of the brattice was destroyed, the first part seems to have deflected the beam away from the cage. Other debris fell on the cage, snapping two of the four support chains. Four of the eight men fell; the others managed to cling on. The beam came to rest jammed in the shaft and other falling debris created a blockage 30 yards (27 m) deep between the yard seam and the high main.
Rescue attempts
One of the deputies, Matthew Chapman, had been on his way home when he heard the crash. Retracing his steps he had himself lowered on a rope and started to clear away some of the debris with an axe. Realising that the man was exhausted, having just come off shift, the under-viewer Joseph Humble sent him home to rest whilst the main rescue effort was organised.
The initial rescue attempt was carried out under the direction of Humble, Carr (owner and viewer), G B Hunter (Cowpen & North Seaton), Hugh Taylor (Backworth) and Matthias Dunn (HM Inspector of Mines). By midnight rescuers had reached the damaged cage and George Sharp Snr was brought up in a rope sling. However, he jammed against some overhanging timbers, came out of the sling and fell to his death. The rescuers (including the by then rested Chapman) then descended the pump staple and lowered a rope sling from the high main. William Shape and Ralph Robinson were brought up from the cage in this manner. Thomas Watson, a Primitive Methodist local preacher, had earlier descended from the cage to the men who had fallen. He remained with them to pray and comfort them until they died. Watson likewise ascended in a sling and was therefore the last man out alive.
With the pumps stopped, all knew that the low main would quickly flood. Those on the surface, therefore, assumed correctly that the men below would make their way via the staple up to the yard seam. Throughout the night men continued to work from ropes.
By 9 am. Friday the rescuers had removed the debris in the shaft (mostly timber from the brattice) to within about 5 fathoms (30 ft; 9.1 m) from the furnace drift, and thought they could hear noises from the men in the yard seam. They were then relieved by sinkers from nearby pits. William Coulson, the master sinker who had supervised the sinking of the shaft in 1845–46, was on a train passing through Hartley station on his way to another job. When passing through Newcastle that morning he had learnt of the accident; he sent a subordinate to see if assistance was needed. On offering his services, he was put in charge late on Friday afternoon, the previous committee yielding to his greater experience.
There were occasional falls of rock from the sides of the shaft below the high main workings. By Saturday night, the rescuers were about 4 fathoms (24 ft; 7.3 m) above the furnace drift. At this depth the shaft crossed a 'trouble'; when rubbish was removed below this there were massive rock falls, with the shaft expanding to up to 27 feet (8.2 m) across in some directions. It became necessary to timber up the sides to secure them before attempting to go lower in the shaft; this took about twelve hours. From Sunday morning onwards, a small hole was excavated through the fallen stone towards the furnace drift. As the men worked through the blockage they were inconvenienced by fumes of carbon monoxide from the upcast furnace and from measures it had ignited. When a small penetration was finally made (3 a.m. Tuesday) there was a release of noxious gas ('carbonic oxide' i.e. carbon monoxide) rendering some of the rescuers speechless; the entire working party had to be rescued and within half an hour the gas had risen to 4 fathoms (24 ft; 7.3 m) above the high main.
To restart some ventilation a cloth brattice was rigged from the yard seam down to the work area. This was made from lengths of bratticing cloth held by various local collieries and was not complete until Thursday. On Wednesday morning, with the bratticing incomplete, George Emmerson (one of Coulson's sinkers sent to investigate if what remained of the pumps would collapse further if debris around them was removed) got three yards into the furnace drift before being forced back by the gas. He had seen an axe, saw and sawn timber, indicating that trapped miners had attempted to escape along that route; but the tools were rusty.
Carr felt able to reply to a telegram sent from Osborne House ("The Queen is most anxious to hear that there are hopes of saving the poor people in the colliery, for whom her heart bleeds") that there were still faint hopes of getting at least some of the men out alive, but these hopes were soon dashed. At the pit-head standers-by had expressed unease at the slow progress of the rescue operations. Two pitmen in their number (William Adams of Cowpen and Robert Wilson of Backworth) were invited to go down the pit and report back to their colleagues on how things stood; exceeding their instructions, they managed to enter the yard seam and found dead men.
Humble and a fellow-viewer (a Mr Hall from Trimdon) penetrated further and found all the miners dead, but on their return to the bank were severely affected by the gas. Others went down later but many became seriously affected by the gas: they reported (according to the 'Newcastle Journal') dead men in every direction, most near the shaft; most seemed to have died placidly: "The exploring parties have seen little boys in the arms of their fathers, and brothers sleeping dead in the arms of brothers". The dead pony was untouched; its corn bins had been emptied and some of the dead had corn in their pockets. Although the rescuers had thought they had heard signalling from the trapped men as late as Saturday night, the last entry in the notebook of the back overman described a prayer meeting held at 1.45 on Friday afternoon.