John Buddle mining engineer. He succeeded his father as manager at Wallsend Colliery in 1806, though his work was not limited to just the local colliery. Buddle was involved with the introduction of the miners safety lamp invented by Humphry Davy being involved in the earliest discussions with Davy in August 1815 and providing "fire-damp" samples for experiments in Davy's London Laboratory. The moment when Buddle tested the new Davy safety lamp for the first time, for real, in Northeast England, is recorded by him in a report to the Select Committee on Accidents in Mines on 4 September 1835 "I first
Safety lamp but cannot pass to the outside. In the Geordie lamp the inlet and exhausts are kept separate. Restrictions in the inlet ensure that only just enough air for combustion passes through the lamp. A tall chimney contains the spent gases above the flame. If the percentage of firedamp starts to rise, less oxygen is available in the air and combustion is diminished or extinguished. Early Geordie lamps had a simple pierced copper cap over the chimney to further restrict the flow and to ensure that the vital spent gas did not escape too quickly. Later designs used gauze for the