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Thomas Sugdon
| Age: | 34 |
| Died: | 23rd Apr 1864 |
| Accident: | 23rd Apr 1864 |
| Year Born: | abt. 1830 |
| Colliery: | Shildon Lodge, New Pit |
| Company: | Bolckow and Vaughan |
| Occupation: | Sinker |
| Notes: | killed by falling of a cradle in the New pit |
| Buried: | [not known] |
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| Description | |
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At Shildon Lodge Colliery, belonging to Messrs. Bolckow and Vaughan, on the 23rd of April, five workmen were being lowered down a shaft (recently sunk, to comply with the requirements of the Act 25 & 26 Vict. C 79) upon a cradle suspended by two distinct ropes, when, owing to the canting and jerking of the cradle, two of the workmen slipped off it, and fell to the bottom of the shaft, a depth of about 50 fathoms, and were killed.
When a cradle is being lowered, while suspended by two different ropes, it is difficult to keep the cradle (which is a mere platform) in a horizontal position, owing to the ropes not being given off at equal rates ; and hence the cradle is very apt to get into an inclined position, and, without great care, the persons upon it are likely to slip off and fall down the shaft.
I consider that it was a dangerous and improper thing to lower so many as five workmen from the surface under such circumstances, and that only one, or at most two, careful men should have been upon the cradle to guide it, and call to the surface as to which of the ropes required lowering or stopping from time to time, if it were not practicable to send the cradle down to near the position where it was required without any person upon it. The workmen could have been sent down to the cradle after it was lowered by a distinct rope.
With great care on the part of the workmen upon the descending cradle the accident need not have occurred ; but it is best not to place workmen in such positions as require extraordinary care on their parts to save themselves from injury or loss of life in all cases where doing so can be avoided.
In this case I am inclined to think that the side of the cradle to which one of the ropes was attached had first rested upon a small projection from the side of the shaft, and had thus been arrested in its descent, while a considerable quantity of rope belonging to that side of the cradle had been slacked out, and the side of the cradle to which the other rope was attached, being free, had descended, so as to throw the cradle into an inclined position ; after this, I think the arrested side of the cradle, where the slack rope had accumulated, had slipped off the projection and fallen suddenly, so as to tighten the slack rope (which, probably, admitted of that side of the cradle suddenly falling, even to a lower level than the other side), and that the two workmen had slipped off the cradle from the sudden jerk and the altered inclination of the cradle.
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| Sources | |
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- 1864 Mines Inspectors Report, Southern District by John J. Atkinson, H.M. Inspector of Mines, Page: 20
- 1864 Mines Inspectors Report, Southern District by John J. Atkinson, H.M. Inspector of Mines, Page: 35, Accident Number: 18
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