Coalmining Accidents and Deaths

This is a database of over 164,000 records containing the details of coalmining accidents and deaths in the UK. Some names are shown as "Witheld" - this is for reasons of Data Protection and relates to all records of people injured since 1950.

Enter search terms

 

A few examples of this tragic history:

Disasters

Information about disasters within the UK mining industry durng which 5 or more miners died. You can also study a full list of all disasters:

 

Reports



UK Mining Disasters 1707 - 99
70 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1800 - 19
176 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1820 - 39
490 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1840 - 49
336 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1850 - 54
302 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1855 - 59
339 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1860 - 62
403 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1863 - 66
387 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1867 - 69
455 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1870 - 72
70 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1873 - 75
292 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1876 - 77
311 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1878 - 79
406 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1880 - 81
324 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1882 - 83
262 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1884 - 85
304 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1886 - 88
220 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1889 - 90
206 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1891 - 93
313 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1894 - 95
284 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1896 - 97
309 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1898 - 1901
232 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1902 - 05
292 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1906 - 07
242 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1908 - 10
517 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1911 - 13
314 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1914 - 18
215 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1919 - 23
410 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1924 - 29
313 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1930 - 31
409 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1932 - 34
584 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1935 - 38
267 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1939 - 42
287 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1943 - 47
436 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1948 - 51
314 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1952 - 57
266 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1958 - 62
345 kB

UK Mining Disasters 1963 - 79
463 kB


Notes on Searching

If you enter more than one word the system will only display records that contain all the words. For example: "ROSS Edinburgh" will find anyone called Ross in the town of Edinbugh.

If you know the SURNAME and COLLIERY that's a great place to start e.g. "BROWN Abergorki"

Capitalisation is ignored so "BROWN", "Brown" and "brown" are all treated the same.

The database holds details of:

  • Name: (almost all records: 99+%)
  • Date: almost all records: 99+%)
  • Year: (almost all records: 99+%)
  • Colliery: (almost all records: 99+%)
  • County: (almost all records: 99+%)
  • Notes: almost all records: 99+%)
  •  
  • Owner: (most records: 89%)
  • Age: (most records: 78%)
  • Occupation: (most records: 79%)
  •  
  • Town: (some records: 54%)

 

Notes on Database Sources

Pre-1850 there was no systematic recording of mining deaths. The records are very diffuse and the names in the files have been trawled up by my own researches over about 10 years. The quality of the information is lacking in some fields and is sourced from lists of victims from mining disasters, periodicals and papers of the time and many people who have offered their help.

1850-1914
Source, the lists of deaths in the Mines Inspectors Reports and some from Ian Winstanley's own research. The reports covered deaths and some injuries in coal, oil shale and metal mines as well as quarries. The names were recorded officially from 1850-1914 and there are over 90,000 entries - a staggering number.

POST 1914
The source of this material are the Mines Inspectors Record Of Accidents which has to be transcribed from hand written documents and any inaccuracies are mine arising from difficulties in reading the original. We would be pleased to hear from you to correct any inaccuracies. In many cases there is no indication as to whether it was a fatal accident and we have erred on the side of caution entering it as (injured).

Notes on the Database

Here is the distribution of records in this database (injuries and deaths).  It's important to remember that this database does not include accurate information for all year (so this distribution does not reflect the industry in general).

Range Total
1700-1750 93
1750-1800 267
1800-1850 3,486
1850-1900 59,580
1900-1950 84,331
1950-2000 16,599
Grand Total 164356

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Age     Total
1 1
2 5
3 9
4 12
5 14
6 23
7 45
8 73
9 123
10 231
11 341
12 805
13 1,707
14 3,108
15 3,128
16 3,301
17 3,296
18 3,098
19 2,987
20 2,966
21 2,962
22 3,078
23 2,796
24 2,898
25 3,090
26 2,864
27 2,721
28 2,972
29 2,558
30 3,575
31 2,295
32 2,942
33 2,534
34 2,558
35 3,161
36 2,784
37 2,357
38 2,737
39 2,424
40 3,576
41 2,178
42 2,512
43 2,154
44 2,226
45 2,865
46 2,189
47 1,967
48 2,178
49 1,966
50 2,872
51 1,647
52 1,913
53 1,734
54 1,812
55 1,953
56 1,576
57 1,421
58 1,412
59 1,258
60 1,548
61 939
62 1,012
63 924
64 758
65 656
66 503
67 410
68 373
69 247
70 229
71 118
72 126
73 84
74 68
75 54
76 40
77 28
78 15
79 16
80 5
81 4
82 2
83 1
84 3
85 2
91 1
95 1
Grand Total 128,155

Most common counties:


 County               Count 
 Lancashire                      45223
 Glamorgan                       28853
 Durham                          12474
 Yorkshire                       10265
 Stafford                        9893
 Monmouth                        8738
 Lanark                          5841
 Denbigh                         3686
 Derby                           2978
 Fife                            2468
 Northumberland                  2399
 Carmarthen                      2145
 Cumberland                      2106
 Ayr                             1949
 Carnarvon                       1737
 Cornwall                        1721
 Merioneth                       1491
 Gloucester                      1144
 Worcester                       1134
 Nottingham                      1100
 Flint                           1093
 Somerset                        947
 Cheshire                        938
 Edinburgh                       920
 Stirling                        868
 Warwick                         769
 Linlithgow                      633
 Mid Glamorgan                   596
 Shropshire                      564
 Brecon                          539
 Leicester                       526
 Monmouthshire                   472
 Ireland                         357
 Northumberland.                 348
 Durham.                         345
 Gwent                           301
 Devon                           295
 N. Yorkshire                    260
 Derbyshire                      240
 Camarthen                       233
 West Glamorgan                  185
 Pembroke                        171