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	Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	5th July 1901
Colliery:	Shildon Lodge
Company:	Bolckow, Vaughan and Co., Ltd.
Cause:	(See description below)
Lives Lost:	1
Category:

No. 227 on the list occurred at Shildon Lodge Colliery, belonging to Messrs. Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., Ltd., on July 5th, and caused the death of a screen boy.

This boy, when there was not sufficient work at his ordinary employment, was taken into the timber yard on the surface to stack timber. On the day in question he was so employed when he left the place he was working at to ask a horse-driver what time it was. Nothing is known as to what he did after that, but he was found under the wheel of the truck which the horses were pulling.

There is little doubt, I think, that he had climbed up on to the side of the truck and was caught by a stack of timber by the side of the railway, was pulled off, and then fell under the truck and the wheel passed over and killed him.

There was plenty of room in the yard to have built this stack of timber quite clear of the trucks, but as it was placed there were only 12 inches at one end and four at the other between it and passing waggons.

The deceased had no work where he was, and in getting on to the truck, if he did, he was doing what he should not do, it being contrary to the Special Rules in force at the colliery.

These small spaces between trucks; buildings, uprights, stacks of timber, &c., are a constant source of danger to all employed, and one to which the attention of owners and managers has on many occasions been called by circular letters issued by the Home Office and by myself and my assistants in the course of our inspections. In the case of stacks of timber like this one the remedy is a very simple one, and I hope the result of this accident will be that managers in future will see that they are kept a sufficient distance from the sides of the trucks to prevent accidents like this one occurring.

Source:

1901 Mines Inspectors Report (Cd 1062), Durham District (No. 4) by R. D. Bain, H.M. Inspector of Mines, Page: 29 Where to find this report

	Wilson, Christopher, aged 13, Screen Boy, he was piling timber up in the timber yard and left his work to ask the man in charge of the branch horses what time it was and remained with his back against a stack of timber to see the horses pull a truck past; the truck side caught him and he was pulled in front of wheels, which passed over and killed him
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