Haswell Colliery Disaster (NZ373423)

28^th Sept 1844 – One of the most destructive explosions which ever occurred in the Durham coal field took place at Haswell colliery, the property of Messrs Plummer, Taylor, and Co., when ninety-five human beings were deprived of life. The explosion occurred in the Hutton seam, almost immediately after a fall of stone from the roof, which had liberated a vast quantity of gas; and only four persons in the mine succeeded in escaping.  On the 30th, fifty-four bodies were interred side by side in South Hetton churchyard, thirty-one at Easington, and the remainder at more distant places. The pit had been seven years at work, and was considered a very safe one. A subscription was immediately set on foot for the relief of the sufferers, and the sum received amounted to £4,264.

[From Local Historian's Table Book of Remarkable Occurrences Connected with the Counties of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Northumberland and Durham by M.A. Richardson]

Ironically, the disaster struck a few weeks after the debilitating Miners’ Strike of 1844.  The colliery had opened in 1835 and closed in 1896.  Nothing of the colliery village remains – though a ruined fragment of the pithead itself still stands, accompanied by a modern-day memorial to the 95 dead.

The Blackleg Miner (c.NZ287748)

 

One of the most infamous English folk songs of the 19th century, The Blackleg Miner is set in and around the Northumberland villages of Seaton Delaval and Seghill. An uncompromising statement aimed against mining strikebreakers, it has been revived and reused countless times over the years – most recently during the UK Miners’ Strike of 1984-85. It needs little more in the way of introduction, and nothing in the way of explanation…

 

The Blackleg Miner

It’s in the evenin’ after dark,
When the blackleg miner creeps ter wark,
In his moleskin pants and dirty short,
There goes the blackleg miner.

He taeks his pick and doon he goes,
To hew the coal that lies below,
There’s norra woman in this toon row,
Would look at the blackleg miner.

For Delaval is a terrible place,
They rub wet clay in the blackleg’s face,
Around the pits they run a foot race,
To catch the blackleg miner.

Divvn’t gan near the Seghill mine,
For across the top they’ve stretched a line,
To catch the throat and break the spine,
Of the dirty blackleg miner.

Well, they taek his pick and duds as well,
And they hurl them doon the Pit of Hell,
So off you go and fare thee well,
Yer dirty blackleg miner.

So join the union while you may,
And divvn’t wait till yer dying day,
For that may not be far away,
Yer dirty blackleg miner.