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Full Details

Surname
SHEPPERD
Forename
William
Day
19
Month
12
Year
1907
Age
19
Occupation
Landing Boy
Mine/Quarry Name
Usworth
Mineral Worked
Coal
Owner
Johnasson, Gordon & Co. Ltd
Location
Usworth
County
Durham
Details of Event
Deceased was employed in the night shift in an engine plane landing in the Maudlin Seam, known as Klondyke. His duties included tracing up loaded tubs, with a pony, from an incline foot near the in-bye end of the landing and he had brought up three tubs and was waiting to be relieved by the day shift lad. A day shift putter found him, quite dead about 6.45am opposite a refuge hole, about the middle of the lauding, under a stone, 4 feet by 3 feet, and from 6 inches to 12 inches thick but more stone had fallen in the immediate neighbourhood and a crown, 12 feet long, and semi-circular in section, 14 inches by 7 inches, supported at each end by 5.5 feet props was displaced. His lighted safety lamp was on a balk end inside the refuge hole. The stone was relieved by a slip, but it was also probably broken and resting on the timber. At a crush had been experienced in the landing time of the crown had been replaced by iron girders. He had been seen in the landing by the fore shift deputy at 5am, and by the waggon wayman about 5.40am, and they had not noticed anything unsafe. The Local Inspectors reported ‘In our opinion we consider it to have been a pure accident.'