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Full Details

Surname
BENISON
Forename
John Edward
Day
23
Month
02
Year
1909
Age
37
Occupation
Loader
Mine/Quarry Name
Hamstead
Mineral Worked
Coal
Owner
Hamstead Colliery Co. Ltd
Location
Great Barr
County
Staffordshire
Details of Event
Deceased was redding and packing on a main haulage road which dipped 1 in 9 inbye. The haulage was by endless rope at a speed of two miles per hour. The loaded tubs were attached to the rope in sets of four by a screw-down clamp in front and a two pronged fork was attached to the back of the last tub in each set. The empty tubs were attached in sets of eight by similar clamps fore and aft, on account of irregularities in the gradient. An empty set had apparently become derailed and the clamp in front of it broken. Pressed forward by the rear clamp, the set buckled across the road, caught an outgoing full set, broke the clamp in front of it, and set the tubs amain. The strain on the rope at the point lifted it off the floor and the fork being astride, slid along without derailing the tubs or impeding their motion. Deceased presumably concluded from the noise made by the empty tubs that they had broken away, and stepped across to the full road to avoid them. The loaded tubs ran back rapidly and comparatively noiselessly, and crushed him against the following loaded set, killing him instantly. The accident shows the unreliability of a two-pronged fork under such conditions.