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Full Details

Surname
PRATT
Forename
Alexander
Day
05
Month
10
Year
1935
Age
18
Occupation
Miner
Mine/Quarry Name
Bowhill, No.1 Shaft
Mineral Worked
Coal
Owner
Fife Coal Co. Ltd
Location
Auchterderran
County
Fifeshire
Details of Event
5 October 1935: Fife Pit Fatality Inquiry - Men who Ignored Danger Warning - Several miners who had ignored a warning against travelling on a haulage road when the haulage was in motion appeared as witnesses in Dunfermline Sheriff Court yesterday in an inquiry into the death of Alexander Pratt, aged 18, coal miner, Newton Cottages, Balgreggie Road, Cardenden. Pratt died on October 5 in the Dunfermline and West Fife Hospital, as a result of injuries received that day in the haulage road in Hutt's Dook, No. 1 pit, Bowhill colliery caused by his being struck by part of the haulage, which was then in motion. George Tullis, 17 Tenth Street, Bowhill, the clipper employed at the foot of the dook said that after he had sent away the last full hutch; Pratt and his father and other four men started to walk up the road. It was illegal for men to travel on. the road when the haulage was in motion, and he warned them not to do so. He was away for about two minutes attending to other duties, and when he came back he found that the men had gone up the road. Hugh Conway, 4 Double Black, Cardenden, the clipper employed, at the top of the dook said he saw the haulage rope bobbing up and down, and then heard the noise of a hutch going over on its side. He called out. "Is everybody clear?" and got no answer but he heard someone moaning. On going down the dook to investigate he found a hutch lying on its side and Pratt lying injured on the line on which the hutch had beer coming up. Philip Pratt, father of the deceased, said that the overman who was sitting in a man-hole told him and his companions that they should not be travelling on the dook when the haulage was in motion, and that they were running a great risk. The Procurator-Fiscal (Mr B. J. Waugh) who conducted the inquiry, mentioned that every one of Pratt's companions had pleaded guilty to a contravention of the Coal Mines Act and had been each fined £2. The jury returned:a formal verdict, and found that the accident was due to Pratt and the other men travelling the dook when the haulage was in motion, contrary to the Coal Mines Act regulations. [Scotsman 25 October 1935]