Tweet

	Individual Details		Individual Details

Age:
Died:	13th Apr 1871
Accident:	13th Apr 1871
Born:
Colliery:	Victoria
Company:
Occupation:	Female [Not employed]
Notes:	Fell down shaft
Buried:	[not known]
Category:

The next group of accidents to describe are those occurrences which in my opinion, as already stated, cannot be inserted in the Lists.

The second incident is of an extraordinary kind. About 4 o'clock in the morning of the 13th of April the fireman of the colliery and his assistant went down the No. 6 pit at Victoria. When 40 yards down or thereabouts a "jar" was felt, and immediately afterwards something fell into the carriage in which they were descending; they thought it was a human body, which it turned out to be. Not being well able to signal in that part of the shaft, they went to the bottom and "rapped" to be brought up again, and then shifted the corpse on to the surface, and found it to be that of a woman, but, to their astonishment, without a head ! They then made further search in the pit, and discovered the head lying on a couple of "biots" (pieces of timber) somewhat lower down than where the body fell into the cage. On examination the case became clear enough to me. The woman had fallen down the pit (which is used both for pumping and winding, therefore has many "stays" in it), but must have struck against the side and rebounded, and instead of dropping plumb to the bottom must have been caught by the pump biots and lay thereon with her head just projecting over, so that when the heavy carriage descended the "jar" the men felt was that of actual decapitation, the body dropping into the cage, and the head falling until it became entangled amongst the horizontal timber, and was there recovered, never having reached the bottom of the pit at all.

Evidence showed that this poor creature and her husband were tramps, and they had been drinking all day, when, about midnight she had gone to the pit fire for warmth, and then fallen, or precipitated herself down the shaft. A wooden flat guard was over it, but the interstices between timbers were too wide. Had the pit been entirely unprotected, I would decidedly have looked on the case as accidental, but the fact of the guard frame being on may induce the suspicion of suicide.

• 1871 Mines Inspectors Report (C. 653), South-western District by Lionel Brough, H.M. Inspector of Mines, Page: 101 Where to find this report

What is your name?
What is your contact email address?
What is your research interest?