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Events/Disaster · 1900

Balmain Colliery shaft bucket accident

Disaster, 1900-03-17, Australia.

What happened

On 17 March 1900 a bucket carrying six men down the roughly 500 m deep shaft of the Balmain Colliery in inner-west Sydney hit a bunting at about 350 m. Five of the men fell to their deaths and one, William Watkins, held on and survived.1,2

Why it matters

The regulator uses it as a case study of shaft winding risk.1,2

Story cards

Around the same time

  1. Bulli Colliery explosion

    It followed a strike that ended in February 1887, and the inquiry blamed lax safety practice by both management and miners.3,4

  2. Hamilton Colliery roof fall at Glebe

    The bodies were recovered over a rescue effort that took almost 10 weeks.5,6

  3. Balmain Colliery shaft bucket accident

    The regulator uses it as a case study of shaft winding risk.1,2

  4. Stanford Merthyr fire and explosions

    The explosion was heard as far away as East and West Maitland.7,8

  5. Monongah mine explosion

    E-WV links public outrage to the creation of the US Bureau of Mines in 1910.9,10,11

  6. Coal Mines Act 1911

    It was the main British coal mine safety code of the early twentieth century.12,13

  7. Ludlow Massacre

    The National Park Service links the massacre to the debate on the eight-hour working day.14,15

  8. Battle of Blair Mountain

    Battle of Blair Mountain. Wikidata records 95 deaths.16

Open the full timeline

Where next

Events

An example ofGreta Colliery fireTwo 1900 case studies: a shaft accident at Balmain and a fire at Greta, five dead each.17An example ofStanford Merthyr fire and explosionsStanford Merthyr's explosion killed six in 1905.7

Sources

  1. 1900 Balmain Colliery - Winder case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator
  2. Balmain (item Q2881464), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  3. 1887 Bulli Colliery Explosion case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator
  4. Bulli (item Q4996904), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  5. 1889 Hamilton Colliery (Glebe) Fall of Roof case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator
  6. Merewether (item Q6819071), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  7. 1905 Stanford Merthyr Mine case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator
  8. Kurri Kurri (item Q1793195), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  9. Monongah (1907) e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia (WV Humanities Council)
  10. Coal fatalities, 1900 to date US Mine Safety and Health Administration
  11. Monongah (item Q2731020), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  12. Coal Mines Act 1911 UK National Archives (legislation.gov.uk)
  13. London (item Q84), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  14. War in the Coalfields: the Ludlow Massacre and its impact on the eight-hour workday US National Park Service
  15. Ludlow (item Q1003486), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  16. Wikidata item Q3329738 (Battle of Blair Mountain)
  17. 1900 Greta Colliery Fire case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0.