IN MEMORIAM
Thomas Wilby
23 July 1861 · age 47
Fall of roof while drawing props
Allerton Bywater · Carter and Co. · of Soothill
His life
Thomas Wilby was a coal miner, aged 47, belonging to Soothill. That is the whole of what the contemporary paper says of him. Soothill was a township in the parish of Dewsbury, on the high ground north of Hanging Heaton and about a mile and a half from Dewsbury town. Age 47 in July 1861 puts his birth about 1814.
The 1861 census was taken on 7 April, three months before he was killed, so he should appear in a Soothill or Dewsbury household. No schedule that can be tied to this man has been found in the open indexes. No baptism, marriage or burial entry has been matched either. Durham Mining Museum still prints burial as not known. Parents, wife and children are not invented.
He was working away from home. Soothill is some fifteen miles from Allerton Bywater. The paper calls the working “Mr. Carter’s new pit.” Carter’s Haigh Moor shafts beside the Aire had been sunk from 1840. “New” may mean a fresh district, or a pit newly in his work, rather than the later Silkstone sinking of 1875, which had not begun.
The accident
On Tuesday evening, 23 July 1861, Wilby was underground in Mr Carter’s pit at Allerton Bywater. He was drawing props. A portion of the roof fell on him and killed him on the spot.
The Leeds and West Riding Express printed that on Saturday 27 July, in the local news, without a heading of its own. Charles Morton, H.M. Inspector, entered the death as Accident No. 41 in his 1861 tabular list, page 155, and described it only as a fall of roof in the mine. He wrote no narrative. The accidents index shortens the cause to “fall of coal.” The paper is the fuller account, and it says roof, not coal.
Newspaper report and conclusion
No coroner’s inquest paper has been traced. The paper does not give a verdict. It says he was killed on the spot.
On Tuesday evening, a coal miner named Thomas Wilby, aged 47, belonging to Soothill, was working in Mr. Carter’s new pit at Allerton Bywater, and whilst in the act of removing some props, a portion of the roof fell upon him, killing the poor fellow on the spot.
Leeds and West Riding Express, Saturday 27 July 1861, vol. IV, no. 189, page 2. The printed word is “spot.” A typed copy of the cutting reads “spct.”
1861 Mines Inspectors Report, Charles Morton, page 155, Accident No. 41. Thomas Wilby, Allerton Bywater, Carter and Co., fall of roof in the mine, 23 July 1861. No age. No narrative. Burial not stated.
Sources and citations
Leeds and West Riding Express, Saturday 27 July 1861, page 2. Thomas Wilby, aged 47, of Soothill, Mr Carter’s new pit, Allerton Bywater, killed on the spot while removing props.
1861 Mines Inspectors Report, Charles Morton, page 155, Accident No. 41. Cited by the Durham Mining Museum: died 23 July 1861, Allerton Bywater, Carter and Co., fall of roof in the mine, burial not known, age blank.
UK Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths Index: Thomas Wilby, 23 July 1861, place given as Normanton, employer Carter and Co, fall of coal in the mine.
Alan Beales, Database of Fatalities in the Coal Fields: Thomas Wilby, Allerton Bywater, 23 July 1861. No age.
Corrections
- Date. Tuesday evening before the Saturday paper of 27 July is 23 July 1861. The indexes and the paper agree.
- Cause. Fall of roof while drawing props, as the paper says, and as Morton’s table says. The accidents index’s “fall of coal” is the shorter and wrong form.
- Place. The pit was Allerton Bywater. Normanton, in the accidents index, is dropped. Home was Soothill, in Dewsbury parish.
- Age. 47, from the paper. The mining indexes leave it blank.
- Burial and family. Still not verified. Not filled in.
Authors
