search
Hartley Colliery
Trends
- 1Hartley Colliery Disaster Remembered: The 1862 Tragedy That Changed Mining Law●The Hartley Colliery disaster killed 204 men and boys in 1862 after a broken pumping-engine beam blocked the mine’s only
In 1862, a broken pumping-engine beam blocked the only shaft at Hartley Colliery in Northumberland, trapping and killing 204 men and boys underground. The catastrophe shocked Victorian Britain and prompted Parliament to legislate that all mines must have separate means of escape, a turning point in British mining safety law.