A English Victorian illustration depicting the Hartley colliery coal mine disaster (aka Hartley Pit disaster and Hester Pit disaster). It occurred in the county of Northumberland, England on Thursday 16 January 1862 with a death toll of 204, when the cast-iron beam of the pit's pumping engine broke ,falling down the shaft. Many men were trapped. The incident brought about a change in British law that then required all collieries to have at least two independent means of escape

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Size: 4076px × 5216px
Photo credit: © Colin Waters / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: 1800s, 1862, accident, attempts, basket, brattice, breaking, broke, cast, cast-iron, coal, coalmine, coalminers, collapse, colliery, depiction, disaster, disasters, downcast, escapes, falling, flooding, hartley, hester, historic, illustration, iron, killed, law, miner, miners, piot, pit, pits, print, pump, rescue, shaft, single, timbers, trapped, upcast, ventilation, ventilator