1850-59
SOURCES and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.
1850 saw the publication of the first Mines Inspectors Reports and as an appendix to each area report there appeared a tabulated list of mining victims. Mathias Dunn, the Inspector
for the North East, for some unknown reason, refused to include the list of victims so
incidents in Northumberland and Durham have been gleaned from a variety of sources.
The tabulated lists were published in the Inspectors Reports up to 1914 and these are the
main source for these lists.
I am eternally grateful to those numerous individuals who have offered their own family
research for inclusion. There are many mining deaths that have come to light from death
certificates and local newspaper articles that were not in the official records. Several
interested groups and societies have so freely shared their findings from cataloguing
gravestones and detailed and systematic searches of local papers and sources and their
contribution to the project have been invaluable.
I am well aware that this a work that will never be complete and I would like to include
any new material that comes to light. I take full responsibility for inaccuracies and
mistakes and will look forward to being corrected. I can be contacted through my web
site, The Coal Mining History Resource Centre.
Further Notes on Database Sources
Pre-1859 there was no systematic recording of deaths. The records are very defused 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
Sources, 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 Records 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 here is no indication as to whether it was a fatal accident and we have erred on the side of caution entering it as injured.
Ian Winstanley 2004
