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	Individual Details		Individual Details

Age:
Died:	21st May 1848
Accident:	21st May 1848
Born:
Colliery:	Butterknowle
Company:
Occupation:	Banksman
Notes:	fell down shaft
Buried:	[not known]
Category:

On Sunday, 21 May, Jacob Graham, an overman at Butterknowle Colliery, discovered that a tub had been put down the pit and, at about 9 o'clock, he went down the shaft with William Curry to see what damage had been done. When they got to the five-quarter seam, they found the tub sticking on a bunting about 100 feet down the shaft. The purpose of the bunting was to divide the shaft for the two working cages. They immediately saw the body of banksman George Hope lying there and on investigation found that he was dead and cold; his right arm had been broken above and below the elbow, and the back of his head was badly injured. It transpired that on Saturday night Hope had been seen drinking at Isabella Curry's beer house in Cockfield, which he did not leave until 2 o'clock on Sunday morning. It was supposed that he had called at the pit on the way home, fallen asleep, and on awakening, thinking the colliery was at work, had taken hold of the tub with the intention of putting it in the cage, but had fallen down the shaft with it. It was also noted at the inquest that there had been no quarrelling among the men at the pit. As there were no witnesses to the accident, the jury returned a verdict that "the deceased was found down the shaft of the colliery, with a mortal wound on the back part of the head, occassioned by his falling down the shaft, but how he had fallen down, there is no evidence to show."

Pub. Date	Article (Newspaper)
27 May 1848	Colliery And Railway Accidents (Newcastle Guardian and Tyne Mercury)

• 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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