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	Individual Details		Individual Details

Age:	26
Died:	8th Jan 1845
Accident:	8th Jan 1845
Year Born:	abt. 1819
Colliery:	Ludworth
Company:
Occupation:	Sinker
Notes:	fell down shaft [Inquest: 10 Jan 1845]
Buried:	[not known]
Category:

An inquest was held on 10 January into the deaths of four sinkers at Ludworth Pit. The four men had been working as part of a team at the bottom of the shaft and, as a shot was about to be fired for blasting the stone, they had got into a corf and were drawn up to the five quarter seam to be safely out of the way of the explosion; the other men were to retreat once they had lit the fuse. However, they heard something falling down the shaft shortly after the corf had been drawn away — it was the corf and the four men: Joseph Robson, 28, Joseph Elsdon, 26, Craik Haddick, 33, and John Hunter, 28, were killed instantly. At the inquest one witness said that he "was positive the hook was fastened securely to the corf at the time it left the bottom of the pit", but it was suggested that the corf "had only been resting on the point of the hook without the spring having been pushed back, and immediately on the corf reaching the five quarter seam, where the men were to get out, it had been moved out of the perpendicular or hanging position it had been in whilst ascending the shaft, and thus slipped off the hook and fell to the bottom." A verdict of accidental death was recorded, with a 1s. deodand on the corf.

• Contributions by members of the Public
• Text kindly provided by Jim Grainger from his research into early newspapers (primarily the Durham Advertiser and Durham Chronicle).

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