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 was surrounded by gauze so that in the event of a glass breakage the Geordie became a Davy. If the current of air forced in through the tubes (later holes and gallery) by the lamp's situation was too strong, the flame grew, and the lamp could get red-hot. The lamp becomes unsafe in a current of from 8 to 12 feet per second, about twice the limit of the Davy's safe operating conditions. However, this variation in the flame was not entirely bad. The intensity of the flame, air currents being equal, gives an indication of firedamp levels, so it