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Full Details

Surname
PICK
Forename
Thomas
Day
03
Month
05
Year
1906
Age
31
Occupation
Stoneman
Mine/Quarry Name
Throckley
Mineral Worked
Coal
Owner
Throckley Coal Co. Ltd
Location
Throckley
County
Northumberland
Details of Event
Deceased and three others were working bargain work during the night making a new flat the Haugh way of the Stone Coal seam of the Derwentwater pit. The seam is 2 feet 8 inches thick, and a top caunch of 1 foot 8 inches, already partly taken down, with a bottom caunch of 2 feet 6 inches made the height. A shot of saxonite was fired in the bottom caunch at the left side about three-quarters of an hour before the accident, and deceased was at the top of the caunch a few feet inbye building a pack on the same side, when a piece of blue metal, 7.5 feet long by 2 feet wide and 14.5 inches thick, relieved by slips at each end, which appear not to have been observed before the accident, fell upon his head partly from the side and partly from the roof. The leading man of the party had examined the stone before the accident, and set a prop with a sleeper as a headtree under the inbye end, of it. The prop was canted out. There was plenty of loose timber handy for use. The backs shift deputy passed the place about the time they started work, but they were not visited by an official during the course of the shift although the master shifter came directly he heard of the accident. The Local Inspectors reported, 'in our opinion it is a pure accident from a fall of stone in an entire deceptive roof. There has been no negligence whatever on the part any one as the place round was securely timbered and there being plenty of timber at hand.'