
Death and Disaster: 1903
Wednesday, 15th of July
A person shall not,…have in his possession any…lucifer match or apparatus of any kind for striking light.’
General Rule Eight, Coal Mines Regulation Act (1897).
On the night of July 15th, 1903, an explosion of firedamp, a highly dangerous gas, occurred in No. 6 Mine in Cumberland.
It killed sixteen miners and injured four others. All of the miners who died were Chinese.

According to the Mine Report, the accident was caused by ‘negligence on the part of the sufferers’ as rescuers found matches, tobacco, and cigarettes in the dead men’s pockets.

Cumberland’s miners, of all origins, often broke the rules and brought matches and banned substances underground. They would also tamper with safety lamps, removing the protective gauze around the flame to get a better quality of light.
When a Chinese miner broke the rules and people were injured, it strengthened long-held prejudice about Chinese workers’ ability to work ‘safely’ underground.
Sadly, we know little of the sixteen miners that lost their lives that day. We are not sure of their names as even official sources are inconsistent. Below is the list supplied by the Inspector of Mines for BC