Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 27 September 1929

“Fed Up-Can’t Stay”

Hanged Harvester at Highwoods.

Farm Foreman’s Discovery.

“Fed up. Can’t stay the distance.” was the message left in a notebook by a man thought to be John Bellamy, of no fixed abode, found hanging in a hayloft at Highwoods Farm, Mexborough, yesterday morning.

The man was a casual harvester who had been assisting Mr. A. Richardson, foreman in charge of the farm, for the Manvers Main Colliery Company, and had lodged in the Mexborough district for several years. During the early part of the week he had been ill and is thought to have got depressed and committed suicide. “I shall never be a trouble to any man,” he said last year to Mr. Richardson when he had been ill.

He returned to work at Highwoods Farm on Wednesday. He was at work as usual about 7 yesterday, but appeared rather strange. He assisted Mr. Richardson in thatching corn stacks for about an hour and a half and was then sent to trim some pegs. Several minutes later Mr. Richardson called for him, and receiving no answer went in search a him. He was not to be found, and so Mr. Richardson went back to work. Half anhour later Mr. Richardson remembered that he had not searched the hayloft. On going there, he found Bellamy hanging from a beam with a halter round his neck. The beam was so low that Bellamy had had to lift his feet from the ground.

Bellamy is thought to be a native of Lincoln and served throughout the war. He bears the marks of severed wounds. His character, so far as Mr Richardson knows is unblemished. “I always found him a straight honest man and a good worker,” he said.

An inquest will be held at the farm today.