The Udston mining disaster occurred in Hamilton

Hamilton, South Lanarkshire

Hamilton is a town in South Lanarkshire, in the west-central Lowlands of Scotland. It serves as the main administrative centre of the South Lanarkshire council area. It is the fifth-biggest town in Scotland after Paisley, East Kilbride, Livingston and Cumbernauld...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 on Saturday, 28 May 1887 when 73 miners

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 died in a firedamp

Firedamp

Firedamp is a flammable gas found in coal mines. It is the name given to a number of flammable gases, especially methane. It is particularly commonly found in areas where the coal is bituminous...

 explosion

Explosion

An explosion is a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner, usually with the generation of high temperatures and the release of gases. An explosion creates a shock wave. If the shock wave is a supersonic detonation, then the source of the blast is called a "high explosive"...

 at Udston Colliery

Coal mining

The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...

. Caused, it is thought, by unauthorised shot firing

Rock blasting

Rock blasting is the controlled use of explosives to excavate, break down or remove rock. It is practised most often in mining, quarrying and civil engineering such as dam or road construction...

 the explosion is said to be Scotland's second worst coal mining

Coal mining

The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...

  disaster

Disaster

A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment...

.

Keir Hardie

Keir Hardie

James Keir Hardie, Sr. , was a Scottish socialist and labour leader, and was the first Independent Labour Member of Parliament elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom...

, then Secretary of the Scottish Miners' Federation, denounced the deaths as murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

 a few days later.

Location

The Udston Colliery, owned by the Udston Coal Company, was situated at the top of Hillhouse, Hamilton behind where Townhill Road now runs. Opened in 1875, it was a small pit employing approximately 200 men and boys working in three coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

 seams at depths of up to 1000 feet (304.8 m) underground. The workings of the colliery extended for 150 acre (0.607029 km²) and were bordered on three sides by the Blantyre, Earnock, and Greenfield Collieries. The last remaining colliery buildings and the pit waste were removed in 2002 and today the site of the colliery is now a housing estate and part of Hamilton’s western expansion programme.

The disaster

At 9am, having been hard at work for almost three hours, many of the day shift

Shift work

Shift work is an employment practice designed to make use of the 24 hours of the clock. The term "shift work" includes both long-term night shifts and work schedules in which employees change or rotate shifts....

 downed tools for their breakfast

Breakfast

Breakfast is the first meal taken after rising from a night's sleep, most often eaten in the early morning before undertaking the day's work...

. During this break, at approximately 9:07am, an explosion ripped through the Splint Seam destroying everything in its path.

The explosion manifested itself in a volume of flame

Flame

A flame is the visible , gaseous part of a fire. It is caused by a highly exothermic reaction taking place in a thin zone...

 and dust

Dust

Dust consists of particles in the atmosphere that arise from various sources such as soil dust lifted up by wind , volcanic eruptions, and pollution...

 at the number two or downcast shaft

Shaft mining

Shaft mining or shaft sinking refers to the method of excavating a vertical or near-vertical tunnel from the top down, where there is initially no access to the bottom....

, followed seconds later by a volume of flame from the upcast or number one shaft which set fire

Fire

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. Slower oxidative processes like rusting or digestion are not included by this definition....

 to the wooden sheds or headings above it.

The sound of the explosion was heard in neighbouring Greenfield Colliery through a 135 feet (41.1 m) barrier of solid coal. In the Blantyre Colliery (where an estimated 216 men had lost their lives

Blantyre mining disaster

The Blantyre mining disaster, which happened on the morning of 22 October 1877, in Blantyre, Scotland, was and remains Scotland’s worst mining accident. Pits No. 2 and No. 3 of William Dixon's Blantyre Colliery were the site of an explosion which killed 207 miners, the youngest being a boy of 11...

 10 years earlier) miners working that morning were temporarily blinded with the dust thrown up by the vibration of the explosion.

The 73 men who died at the Udston disaster were paid on average 3/3d (16p) per day or 17/6 (86p) per week (equivalent to £69.72 per week today in 2007) http://www.measuringworth.com/index.html.

Memorials

In December 2001 South Lanarkshire

South Lanarkshire

South Lanarkshire is one of 32 unitary council areas of Scotland, covering the southern part of the former county of Lanarkshire. It borders the south-east of the city of Glasgow and contains many of Glasgow's suburbs, commuter towns and smaller villages....

 Council acknowledged the disaster

Disaster

A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment...

 by placing a commemorative plaque

Commemorative plaque

A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other vertical surface, and bearing text in memory of an important figure or event...

 on the miner’s statue

Statue

A statue is a sculpture in the round representing a person or persons, an animal, an idea or an event, normally full-length, as opposed to a bust, and at least close to life-size, or larger...

 standing outside Brandon Gate council offices in Hamilton’s Brandon Street. Accepting the plaque on behalf of the victims was Hamilton’s oldest surviving retired coal miner, 96 year old Jimmy Glen who, in 1917 at the age of 13 years, started work at the screening tables in the Bent Colliery.

In 2002, a memorial

Memorial

A memorial is an object which serves as a focus for memory of something, usually a person or an event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or art objects such as sculptures, statues or fountains, and even entire parks....

 plaque dedicated to the six East Kilbride

East Kilbride

East Kilbride is a large suburban town in the South Lanarkshire council area, in the West Central Lowlands of Scotland. Designated as Scotland's first new town in 1947, it forms part of the Greater Glasgow conurbation...

 miners, who died in the disaster,
was unveiled in the memorial garden at Priestknowe roundabout

Roundabout

A roundabout is the name for a road junction in which traffic moves in one direction around a central island. The word dates from the early 20th century. Roundabouts are common in many countries around the world...

in East Kilbride.