For almost 50 years the worst mining disaster in the UK was at the Oaks Colliery near Barnsley where two explosions killed 361 men and boys. However on the 14th October 1913 an explosion ripped through the heart of the Universal Senghenydd Colliery in South Wales killing 436 miners. Of the 436 who died, only 72 bodies were recovered.

At 1.20 pm, Wednesday 12th December, 1866 the first explosion in the Oaks Colliery was heard from three miles away. It was probably caused by blown-out shot and destroyed both cages in the number 1 shaft.

Rescue attempts were hampered by dense smoke and the fact that both pit cages were destroyed in the blast but at 2 pm, after installing a new cage, three rescuers descended number 1 shaft, and brought up between twenty and thirty badly burned workers who were huddled together at the foot of the shaft, however only six of the men survived. Not long after, up to eighty rescuers went underground and fought their way through the dense smoke only to find that the workings were choked with afterdamp. When the rescuers came to the main roadway, they discovered that it was full of suffocated corpses: men. Boys and pit ponies had been overcome by the gas. By evening there were so many volunteers that many had to be turned away.

The following day, at 8.30 am most of the rescuers evacuated the mine after being warned by experienced miners, who recognised the changing air currents and other signs of an impending explosion. Inevitably there was another explosion which killed 27 rescuers, 23 of whom were volunteers from adjacent collieries. It also blew the cage into the headgear and broke the coupling.

Around 7.30 pm there was a third explosion, and flames roared up the second shaft, showing that the coal was on fire. With all hope for survivors being lost no one expected the event which then occurred on the Friday. At about 4.30 am the signal bell on No. 1 shaft was heard to ring! No amount of calling down the shaft could elicit a response so, in desperation, a water bottle (with brandy) was lowered down the shaft to see what happened. When the rope was recoiled the bottle was gone. With haste a temporary headgear was rigged and T.W. Embleton and J.E. Mammatt insisted on travelling into the shaft to effect a rescue.

After a perilous descent they discovered a sole rescuer, Samuel Brown, who had undoubtedly had the luckiest escape in mining history.

From 4:45 am on the Saturday (15th December) and Tuesday (18 th December) there were fourteen more explosions, it was reluctantly decided that there could be no survivors left in the mine and because of the great danger that existed the mine was sealed. Some 80 bodies were still unaccounted for.

There was no complete record kept of who was in the mine at the time and it was subsequently the miner's union that compiled a list of the missing. Of the 340 men and boys who were in the pit on the Wednesday, only six ultimately survived. On the following day 27 rescuers died.

The Oaks Colliery was eventually re-opened using new shafts and new workings.

The second explosion at the Oaks Colliery, Barnsley, December 1866.

Engraving taken from the 'Illustrated London News'. The day after an explosion underground at the Oaks Colliery, in which 334 people died, a second explosion occured, also caused by a build-up of gas in the mine. The rescue party of miners, engineers and employers, sent to save the victims of the first explosion, were killed. After a series of further explosions the decision was made to seal the mine to prevent further fatalities. The total loss of life was 361.