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Full Details

Surname
DUNSMORE
Forename
John
Day
10
Month
08
Year
1934
Age
14
Occupation
Mine/Quarry Name
Blairhall
Mineral Worked
Coal
Owner
Coltness Iron Co. Ltd
Location
East Grange
County
Fifeshire
Details of Event
11 August 1934: Fatal Pit Accident – 14 Year Old Boy's Death At Dunfermline - A man and a boy, victims of accidents at their work, were on Saturday admitted to Dunfermline Hospital, where the boy, succumbed to his injuries. The dead boy was John Dunsmore, a 14-year-old worker at Blairhall Colliery. Dunsmore was caught in the machinery at the coal-picking tables and his right leg was so severely injured that it had to be amputated immediately on his arrival at the infirmary. He died shortly afterwards. [Scotsman 13 August 1934] Boy Mine Worker's Death - Sheriff Refuses Claim for Compensation - In Dunfermline Sheriff Court on Saturday, Sheriff-Substitute F. A. Umpherston issued an interlocutor, deciding an action under the Workmen's Compensation Act, which was the sequel to a fatal accident at a picking table at Blairhall Colliery on August 10, 1934. The victim of the accident; John Dunsmore, aged 14 years and eight-months, died from injuries received as a result of being crushed between a moveable platform and a post, and the claimants were his father and mother, Robert Dunsmore, mine worker, and Mrs Helen Dunsmore, 49 South Avenue, Blairhall, and three brothers and a sister of the deceased. They sued the Coltness Iron Company, Ltd, for £233 15s of compensation in respect of the boy's death. The Sheriff-Substitute finds,.that the respondents are not liable to pay compensation to the claimants, and finds the claimants, liable to the respondents in expenses. In a note to his interlocutor, his Lordship deals with the claimants' averment that the boy Dunsmore had occasion to mount the picking table for the purpose of removing his cap which was lying there; and states that it has not been proved that the cap fell on the table at all. John Dunsmore mounted the moving table. If the cap was not on the table, his only reason for doing what he did must have been to cross the table in that way instead of by the bridge which was provided for that purpose. It had not been proved that John Dunsmore went on the moving table in order, to take from it a foreign article which would otherwise go into the hopper. He went on the table in order to cross it for a purpose of his own. The claimants, therefore, were, in his Lordship's judgement, not entitled to an award of compensation. [Scotsman 5 December 1938]