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Explosion at Blantyre Colliery

When
22 October 1877
Where
William Dixon's Blantyre Colliery
Part of
Blantyre colliery disaster kills over 200 miners

On 22 October 1877, an explosion at Pits No. 2 and No. 3 killed 207 miners, including an 11-year-old boy.

The disaster occurred in the morning. Nothing was thought to be amiss initially. The explosion was caused by methane gas. Safety measures like gauze shielding were not yet in use. The event is recorded as Scotland's worst mining accident.

Sources

  1. Blantyre mining disaster Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-21
  2. Blantyre, South Lanarkshire Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-08

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.