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• Photocopies and photographs
  • West Stanley Colliery Disaster (Ref: D/Ph 470)
  • Slides illustrating the disaster (Ref: D/Ph 470)
  • Messages of sympathy (Ref: D/Ph 470/1)
  • Survivors (Ref: D/Ph 470/2/1-5)
  • The dead being recovered from the mine (Ref: D/Ph 470/3/1-6)
  • Victims (Ref: D/Ph 470/4/1-2)
  • Funerals (Ref: D/Ph 470/5/1-19)
  • Inquiry (Ref: D/Ph 470/6/1-24)
  • Miscellaneous (Ref: D/Ph 470/7/1-3)

Catalogue Description

At 3.45 pm on Tuesday 16 February 1909, a large explosion underground in Burn's Pit sent flames shooting up the shaft, burning many at the surface. There were two shafts, both of which were damaged, leading to four seams: Towneley, Tilley, Busty and Brockwell. Rescuers struggled through the night to repair the Busty shaft and reach the seams and any survivors there; thousands converged on the site, including official and volunteer rescue parties, the owners, managers, workers, relatives and clergy, including the Bishop of Durham. Thirty three men and boys were rescued from the Tilley seam between 6 am and 12.50 pm the next day, of whom two died soon afterwards. There was national news interest and messages sent from the king and queen. A non-denominational relief fund was established immediately by the vicar of Beamish St Andrew for support of the families of the supposed 100 casualties; one of the pit ponies rescued later made a tour with a bath strapped to its back for donations, and souvenir postcards, napkins and photographs were produced.

Carpenters prepared 'shells' in which the bodies of the dead were then brought 'to bank' over the next week, carried into the blacksmith's shop and other cleared buildings for identification and for transfer to more formal coffins. Eventually 168 were declared dead. The coroner held an unprecedented inquest from Thursday through to Monday for the purposes of identification and the issue of burial certificates. Most had died quickly from monoxide poisoning ('afterdamp'), the rest from dioxide poisoning (asphyxiation) or physical damage/burns.

Men worked through Saturday and Sunday morning to prepare burial trenches: two or three in St. Andrew's churchyard and one in St. Joseph's. A few individual funerals were held in St Andrew's on Saturday, but the majority (around 130) were interred in the burial trenches on Sunday 21 February. Services were held in the morning in each church in the town. From 1pm till after dark there was a 'never-ending stream' of bands, hearses, coffin bearers and mourners leading to the cemeteries. Three members of the 8th (territorial) battalion DLI were buried 'with full military honours'. Some were buried in individual or family graves in the cemetery but most, due to the press of crowds, in the trenches in the old churchyard. The Salvation Army held the first services, then Wesleyan Methodists, Primitive Methodists, Presbyterians and finally the Anglicans. The coffins were simply lowered into the trenches and a brief committal service spoken over each; often half a dozen services were being said at once with 15 Anglican ministers present. The Roman Catholics were buried in one trench in a single ceremony at 2pm by Father Dix. The Bishop and others spoke at an evening service in St Andrew's. The crowd was estimated at between 60 and 200 thousand including nearly 300 representing each mine in the county; 100 police attended along with ambulance services.
There were further individual burials on Monday 22 February when the DMA's John Wilson MP also gave an address. Further burials occurred as bodies were recovered. The pit was then closed for a number of years.

A formal inquest was held on 29 March 1909 and heard evidence from engineers including Walter A. Ingledew who had made numerous sketches of the damage. The explosion was due to ignition of dust but no cause was ascertained, though suspicion fell on two large lamps. The initial confusion over the number trapped underground led to the practice of issuing tallies at the cage, soon adopted nationally.

[Information from contemporary accounts published by The Durham Advertiser and The Consett Chronicle]

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