Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 19 September 1902
A Mexborough Engine Tenter’s Death.
The adjourned inquest touching the death of Alfred Spotwood, an engine tenter, of Cresswell row, Mexborough, who died suddenly on Sunday week, was held at the Mexborough Montagu Cottage Hospital on Monday by the district coroner, Mr Dossey Wightman.
The Inspector of Factories was also represented and Mr A.E. Hattersley, of Messrs Hattersley Bros. solicitors, Mexborough, appeared on behalf of Messrs Thomas Barron’s Ltd, glass bottle manufacturers, and who had employed the deceased.
The enquiry was adjourned from week, in order that a post-mortem examination might he made, and so ascertain the cause of death.
The first witness called George Batty, who said he was a labourer, and lived at Mexborough. He worked along with the deceased at Messrs Thomas Barron’s Ltd, glass works. The deceased had charge of an engine and boiler. An accident happen to the deceased on Monday for the 25th. It would be about 11 o’clock in the morning, witness was working about 5 yards away from the mixing “batch.” Deceased was working a grindstone in connection with the engine. Witness had finished mixing the “batch,” and happened to look at the deceased. Deceased was sat down nearby, and was holding his head in his hands, and had eight handkerchief round it. His head was bleeding. He asked him what was the matter, and deceased replied that the belt which worked the grindstone had caught him at the side of the head, and after it said he thought the corner of the belt, where it was spliced, had caught him.
It was nearly a new belt; deceased had only been working it about a couple of months. Deceased said he must have caught the belt with the side of his head. He did not blame anyone in connection with the affair.
In answer to the Inspector, witness said it was a slow belt. It could not have been the bolts in the belt that had struck him.
Replying to Mr Hattersley, the witness said it was an ordinary belt. The deceased work for a week after the accident. He did not tell the witness to report the matter to anyone. The deceased a complaint in of a pain in his ear before the accident. He said it disturbed him at night; he could not get his proper rest.
In answer to Mr Herbert Platt, the foreman of the jury, witness said the belt overlapped when it was spliced, but none of it was loose.
Answering the Inspector, witness said he did not take much notice of the deceased’s accident. It was only a scratch.
Doctor S.O. Hatherley, a surgeon practising at Mexborough, said he did not attend the deceased during life. He had made a post-mortem examination with Doctor Howard, his partner, on the body of the deceased. He did not find any outward marks of violence. Internally they found under the scalp the remains of an injury on the left side of the head – the remains of a contusion. The skull was not fractured. They opened the skull, and found evidence of acute meningitis, in his opinion caused by violence. It could have been caused by a blow on the side of the end. It was a very unusual thing for a man to work for a week after receiving such an injury. The man’s case was hopeless from the first.
This was the whole of the evidence.
The Coroner, in summing up, said the remark made by the deceased to the first witness, that he had gone too close to the belt, carried the all thing, in his opinion.
It was stated that the deceased had been an engine tenter for 50 years. One of his eyes was defective.
The jury returned a verdict that the deceased had been “accidentally killed.”