Midsummer murders

[anne fraser]

I have recently been looking at my tree again to see what new information has come on line. Yesterday I found another child for one of my branches. James Withers. I had seen him on the 1841 census but with no relationships given I was reluctant to claim him. However exploring further it soon became apparent why he was missing from the 1851 census. He died in 1847 aged just 11. The parish register has a note at the side "killed by falling stuff in the Wells way colliery."

Looking up this colliery I found a report of an earlier accident http://www.somersetlive.co.uk/dark-s...ail/story.html.

I think reading the report it seems to me that the crash was due to poor maintenance rather than sabotage but it must have been terrible sending your other children to work in a pit with that reputation. The somerset miners were a close knit group and I recognise several surnames of people who married into my family among the victims.

The vicar at the time seems to have been a radical and he recorded all deaths from colliery accidents in the register.

Sometimes this hobby changes from being a dull collation of census and baptismal entries to become living history. (My grandmother came from Midsummer Norton if any one wonders about the title of the thread.).