A short history of the engineering and scientific force put to work to save lives underground, focussing particularly on the work of Sir Humphry Davy and George Stephenson:
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/safety-underground-mining-and-the-miners-lamp

Mining disasters such as those at High Blantyre in 1877 or Gresford (1934) are a reminder of the hazards of mining.

Work done by Sir Humphry Davy and George Stephenson on the safety lamp will be used to illustrate the problems of taking scientific knowledge out of the controlled environments of the laboratory and putting it to practice use.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/safety-underground-mining-and-the-miners-lamp

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,800 lectures free to access or download from the website.
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