Hi - About three years ago, as part of a local history course based on the Sunderland area, I completed a project into the development of the miners safety lamp. The following may be of help:
(a) In answer to Tony Brooks first query it seems to be generally assumed that the Davy lamp was first used in some of the fiery pits of the north in 1816. To try and put some dates on this:
The first Davy lamps, made by John Newman, are recorded as having arrived in the north on 8th January 1816 and experiments were carried out on the following day at the blower at Hebburn Colliery by Rev John Hodgson and the viewer, Matthias Dunn. Apparently the experiments were successful and were repeated on 17th January by Hodgson, Dunn and the viewer John Buddle.
Matthias Dunn however claims to have tested the lamps in some of the most flammable parts of Hebburn Colliery on 1st January 1816.
In the autumn of 1816 Davy accompanied Buddle into some of the fiery mines of the north to see his lamp in actual use. So it seems safe to assume that the lamps began to be commercially used in the early part of 1816.
However safety lamps invented by Dr William Reid Clanny were being used in pits owned by Lady Frances Anne Vane Tempest (later Lord Londonderry's pits) before Davy visited the north in 1815. Hetton Colliery also favoured the use of the Clanny lamp.
The introduction of the safety lamp designed by George Stephenson should also be remembered when considering Davy's work.
(b) Portable electric hand lamps are believed to have been first introduced about the middle of the 19th century but the first ones were of crude design and gave little better advantage over the oil lamp. The 1886 report of The Royal Commission on Accidents in Mines examined a number of portable lamps and reported that considerable progress had been made. The introduction of cap lamps must be considerably later than this.
Alan.
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