The Seaham Colliery Explosion 8th September1880 That claimed 164 lives out of a shift of 230 men. It occurred, without warning, at 2.20 a.m. in the morning, during a maintenance shift, when no coal was being worked and thus no escape of explosive gas was expected. The cause seems to have been a shot fired in an area of stone, where there was a considerable amount of dust on the ground that was disturbed during the work preparing a 'refuge hole'; and it was this dust suspended in the air that ignited with tremendous effect.
No one from the immediate area survived; many others were trapped and died before rescuers could unblock the shafts and reach them. The tragedy, the second worst in the long mining history of County Durham and the third worst in the history of the Great Northern Coalfield. The families of those dead or missing were unable to get anywhere near the colliery. The crowd round the pit reached an estimated 14,000 on the Wednesday night.
By Sunday there were an estimated 40,000 people in the vicinity to see the first mass funerals Of the 164 men and boys killed in the 1880 disaster 32 were not resident at Seaham Colliery Pit Village. 28 of these lived at Seaham Harbour. Two (the brothers John and David Knox) lived at Seaton Village. One (John Watson) lived at Murton. One (Robert Wharton) lived at Sunderland. The badly-faded gravestones of at least two of the victims of the Seaham Colliery disaster can be found leaning against the walls of the disused St. John's graveyard in Seaham Harbour.
