South Yorkshire Mining Disasters

Abstract

In the period that we now call the Industrial Revolution mining disasters wrecked the lives of thousands of South Yorkshire families and devastated entire communities. The Husker pit flooding of 1838 in which 26 young girls and boys were killed shocked Victorian society and and was a significant factor in the 1842 Report on Employment of Women and Children in Mines; but earlier, long forgotten disasters are also explored. The Barnsley area was particularly hard-hit during the middle decades of the century with major mining accidents, usually great explosions of firedamp occurring, for example