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Full Details

Surname
ABBOTT
Forename
John James Smith
Day
12
Month
11
Year
1913
Age
47
Occupation
Miner
Mine/Quarry Name
Prince of Wales
Mineral Worked
Tin
Owner
Prince of Wales Mine Ltd
Location
St Mellion
County
Cornwall
Details of Event
He and his mate were standing on a stage which they had erected twenty minutes previously, drilling a shot-hole in an overhand stope when the staging collapsed. He fell head foremost down a pass, five feet away from the staging, a distance of about twenty feet. He died two days later. The footwall end of the stage "spreader" was fixed on a ledge of weak killas ground which eventually broke off. At the time of the accident two other miners were engaged in building up the stilling of the pass and in consequence the top of the pass was uncovered; but he very improperly elected to proceed with the drilling of the shot-hole while the stilling was being built. The taker of the contract, who was building the pass, on being asked by the Coroner why he did not stop his work so as to permit of the pass being covered, or alternatively, ask the men working on the stage to do so, replied that it ‘might have caused unpleasantness’.