On this day in 1862, an accident at the Hartley Pit in Northumberland led to the deaths of 204 men and boys. Around 11 o’clock in the morning, a wooden engine beam snapped sending more than 20 tons of winding gear and equipment down the shaft at the colliery about ten miles north-east of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. … Continue reading ‘The Hartley Catastrophe’