Single Record

Full Details

Surname

FORSYTH

Forename

James Alexander Barbour

Day

14

Month

11

Year

1943

Age

20

Occupation

Stripper

Mine/Quarry Name

Frances

Mineral Worked

Coal

Owner

Fife Coal Co. Ltd

Location

Dysart

County

Fifeshire

Details of Event

14 November 1943: Killed By Shot In Pit - Sheriff's Rebuke To Miners - Evidence was led at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court to-day in the case in which William M'Lachlan, shot firer, 49 East Quality Street, Dysart, was charged with having, on November 12, 1943, within No. 1 Boreland Section, Low's Mine, Frances Colliery, (1) before firing shots failed to take suitable steps to prevent any person approaching the shot which was fired by him, whereby James Alexander Balfour Forsyth, apprentice coal stripper, 46 Bellfield Crescent, Kirkcaldy, was severely injured and died in Kirkcaldy Hospital on November 14, 1943; and (2) before coupling the cable to the firing apparatus failed himself to couple up the cable to the fuse or detonator wires. Accused pleaded not guilty to the first charge and guilty to the second. James Millar Dick, stripper, 32 Relief Street, Dysart, said no warning had been given before the fatal shot was fired, but his evidence was not corroborated. Other witnesses working beside accused professed ignorance of the regulations regarding shot firing. Accused did not go into the witness box. In finding the first charge not proven, Sheriff More said it seemed to him that those whose lives were mostly concerned seemed to take these regulations in a very light way. It was terrible to think, that some of the witnesses who had spent most of their lives in the pits did not know what the regulations were and did not seem to pay much attention to them. He imposed a fine of 40s on the second charge. [Evening Telegraph 24 March 1944]