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
Davy lamp was outside their province. The lamps had to be provided by the miners themselves, not the owners, as traditionally the miners had bought their own candles from the company store. Miners still preferred the better illumination from a naked light, and mine regulations insisting that only safety lamps be used were draconian in principle, but in practice neither observed nor enforced. After two accidents in two years (1838-9) in Cumberland pits, both caused by safety checks being carried out by the light of a naked flame, the Royal Commission on Children's Employment commented both on the failure to learn from