So we arrive at the enquiry into the unfortunate death of John Whitfield a young man simply going to work and the enquiry finds that his death was entirely his own fault.
Well that’s OK then.
High Peak News
31 March 1888
THE GUNPOWDER EXPLOSION NEAR BUXTON
ENQUIRY AT STOCKPORT INFIRMARY
FATAL RESULT OF NEGLECTING RULES
On Tuesday morning, at 11 o’clock, the Deputy-Coroner (Mr T.W. Johnson) opened an enquiry at the Stockport Infirmary relating to the death of John Whitfield, who died at the Infirmary from the effects of injuries received on Thursday last week at the Powder Works, Fernilee, near Buxton. Mr John Winkley was foreman of the jury, and the proceedings occupied over three hours. It will be remembered that in addition to the deceased two girls named Turner, of Whaley Bridge, were injured by the explosion, and are now lying at the Infirmary.
Caroline Whitfield said she lived at 185 Devonshire Street, Birmingham, and her husband was an insurance agent. The deceased, John Whitfield, was her son, aged 23. He was a mechanic, and left home on January 2nd last in order to go to work for Messrs Williamson and Company, powder manufacturers, Fernilee. On Friday she got a letter saying her son had been taken to the Stockport Infirmary, having been hurt in an explosion, and in response to another letter from the house surgeon of the Infirmary, received by her on Sunday morning, she came over to Stockport on Sunday afternoon, and on arriving at the Infirmary at night she was told her son was dead.
Edward Taylor, of Powder Mill Cottages, Fernilee, said he was a foreman in the employ of Messrs. Williamson. Between 8.30 and nine o’clock on Friday morning last he was pushing a truck up as far as the cartridge truck. There were 1,000 lbs on his truck, which he put up to the entrance to the cartridge shed, but he could not get any farther on account of a surface truck being in front of him, blocking the line.
At this juncture Major Cundill, R.A., her Majesty’s Inspector of Explosives (from the Home Office, Whitehall), entered the room, and apologised to the coroner for being somewhat late.
Mr Ault (manager for Messrs Williamson) said he might take that opportunity of saying that his firm was anxious for the fullest investigations into the matter.
Witness (resuming) said he looked for Whitfield inside the shed where he usually put powder for the girls to work with, but he wasn’t there. The girls (Martha and Annie Turner) he noticed were not working in the usual way. They were engaged in making cartridges.
Mr Ault here, at the suggestion of the Inspector, explained to the jury the nature of the revolving machine used for the purpose of filling cartridges.
Witness (continuing) said he spoke to the two girls who were filling the cartridges. The machine was a double one, and the girls were only filling from one side. They were standing in their right places. Martha Turner was taking the cartridges off the pegs, and lifting the pegs out with the caps, and passing both caps and pegs to her sister Annie. Martha’s feet were not working, only Annie’s. If the machine had been working properly there would have been no passing of the pegs and caps. Witness did not speak to them, as it was no business of his. Whitfield and the server then came up, and the former went inside and spoke to the girls but witness did not hear what he said. Whitfield came out again, and witness asked him to give him a lift over the rails with his truck, as he (witness) was on sufferance there.
The Inspector said that powder within 20 yards of the shed was by the rules reckoned inside the shed, and Taylor was naturally anxious to get it away. It was a good job that he did so, or the explosion would have been much more violent.
Witness (resuming) said Whitfield helped him and then went somewhere, but he could not say where. In a minute or two after he had left the explosion occurred and he saw Whitfield running, covered with flames, out of the cartridge-shed to lay himself down in a brook near. Annie Turner followed Whitfield to the brook, but Martha had to be taken there. The hair of the girls was on fire. The girls were sent home (after being attended to temporarily) in the powder mill trap and Whitfield was sent to Stockport Infirmary. Martha Turner had worked at the place for four or five years, and the other girl two or three years. He never heard them say how the explosion occurred.
By the Inspector: He was in charge of one part of the works, and Mr Saxon the other. It was no business of him to tell the girls that their machine was wrong. It was a rule in the works to report anything wrong with a machine, but he didn’t think he had any cause to do so in this case.
The Inspector: In fact, you let it slide, that’s it.
The Coroner (to witness): Do you mean to say that you being a foreman would not say if you saw anything wrong with a machine in a part of the works with which you were not connected? I didn’t think it was my place to look after this matter.
The Inspector here read a number of rules laid down for the guidance of the workmen in powder mills, as approved by the Home Secretary. One of these read: “If at any time the machinery or appliances should appear to the workmen to be in an unsafe or doubtful condition, the machinery is at once to be stopped, and the man in charge is immediately to report the same to the manager of the firm, and work is not to be resumed till the defective machinery has been made safe and perfect, and authority given to that effect.”
The Inspector (to witness): Now, you are acquainted with these rules, aren’t you?
Yes.
And yet you didn’t check the girls?
No.
The Coroner: You say you didn’t consider it your duty?
Not up there in that part of the works I didn’t.
The Inspector: Have you ever known this machinery go wrong before?
“No”
Do you know what is wrong with it now?
“No”.
What, haven’t you had the curiosity to look at it since the explosion? “Yes”.
Then don’t you know where it was gone wrong?
“No”.
You’re not a mechanic?
“No”.
John Wm Saxon, aged 19, server at the powder mills, said at 8.30 he was serving the girls. They were then working one side of the machine, but at 7.30 the same morning they were working it properly. When he went in at eight o’clock the girl Martha told him that they could not work the machine, as a stop was wrong, it being loose. At the request of the girls he looked at it, and found that it was loose, and that the cap was jammed against the stop. He then went to the office to report the matter to his father (a manager) who told him to let it be till after breakfast. He went back, and suggested to the girls that they should work one side. He asked Martha if it would be right to do so, and she said “Yes,” and Annie said the same. They then started working one side and it seemed to go all right. At 8.30 he reported the matter to the mechanic, John Whitfield, who went there and then to look at it. Witness then went to move his truck, and in about five minutes afterwards he heard the explosion.
The Inspector: What made you tell the girls to go on?
“We had worked on one side very often, when the cartridges being made were too big for both sides”.
Have you ever known this machine worked on one side when the other side was wrong? Think well of your answer.
(After a pause) I don’t know that it ever was.
Was it any business of yours to suggest to the girls that they should go on?
“No”.
Did they know you’d no authority?
“Yes, I think they did”.
A Juror: Are these girls paid by piece or a regular wage? Witness: Regular wages.
Thomas Lupton, carpenter, in the employ of Messrs Williamson, said about nine o’clock on Thursday morning last he was in the carpenters’ shed, about 150 yards from the cartridge shed. He heard an explosion, and on going to see what was the matter he saw the shed blown to pieces, some portions blazing a little. Whitfield was then just coming out of the brook, and he said “I am made a mess of now,” and witness replied “You’re Jack.” He was badly burned about the head and arms, but he did not say how it occurred. Witness went with Whitfield to the mechanics’ shop and then went to fetch one of the girls out of the brook.
The Inspector: You were a quarter of an hour with him, and you did not ask him how this affair occurred?
“No”.
The Coroner: Didn’t it strike you to ask him?
“Well, the man looked upset, and I didn’t care to ask him. I asked him if he would go to the Infirmary or to my house, as he was lodging with my parents, and with a little persuasion he consented to go to the Infirmary”.
The Inspector: You were friendly, of course, if he was lodging at your house, and yet you never asked your friend how he got hurt?
“No”.
The manager, Mr Ault, was then sworn, and was examined by the Inspector: You remember an explosion in 1881 in another factory? “Yes”.
Was it the same machines there as at Fernilee?
“No; they were of the same construction somewhat, but ours are entirely new, and altered considerably”.
In your machines the spindles revolve by ratchet, don’t they?
“Yes”.
Does the spindle itself revolve?
“No, the table revolves”.
Is there any means of seeing if the ratchet gets worn at all; is there any index on the plate at all?
“If the ratchets were worn, and didn’t bring the holes quite true, it must be seen; the table would not take the feed if the machinery was not true”.
Had any defect come to your knowledge on this morning or at any other time, in connection with this machine?
“Not during the whole time it has been there”.
I see in your special rules here it says “The foreman shall go round twice a day and see all is right; who is the foreman in this case?
“The deceased, who was our mechanic”.
Then there is another rule, saying the foreman “must give a verbal report at least three times a week,” was that adhered to?
“Yes, the deceased reported on the day preceding the explosion that all was right”.
Were there fixed days for making reports?
“No, casually; before 7.30 in the morning was the deceased’s time for examining the cartridge machine”.
How long had the deceased and the girls been with you?
“The eldest girl five years and the youngest about three years. Whitfield about five months”.
Did you ever have occasion to blame Whitfield in any way?
“No: he was a good workman, and when he came to us, as he had not been used to these machines, I had one taken to pieces for him, and he got to thoroughly understand it”.
Mr Ault added that at times they had large cartridges to make, and on such occasions they had both feeders going and only one press. This is what a previous witness wanted to say.
He (Mr Ault) saw Whitfield when he was on his way to the Infirmary, and Whitfield then said that when the explosion occurred he was making the far machine in the shed (there was another machine there) right for the girls to go on. He was gauging it, to use the technical expression.
James D. Staple, house surgeon, said when admitted to the Infirmary deceased was suffering from shock, and his hands, arms and head were burnt by gunpowder. The girls were injured in a similar way.
The Inspector was then sworn, and informed the jury that he had examined the scene of the explosion, and had seen the girls, and, although it might not be strictly evidence to say so, he might add that their story quite agreed with all the evidence that had been given.
The Inspector then, with the aid of a round table and the dies in use in the cartridge machine, explained to the jury the manner in which the machine revolved, filling and releasing cartridges, observing that if the sister Martha had taken out the cartridges as they passed round nothing would have happened; but, inadvertently, she let two slip round, and the stop coming down heavily and giving the apparatus a sideways cant, caused a friction, and the explosion followed.
A Juror: Would the friction thus caused be sufficient?
The Inspector: Oh, yes. Of course, I don’t say for a certainty that this is how the explosion occurred, but all the circumstances point to that conclusion, and I think, on the whole, Mr Ault agrees with me.
Mr Ault: Yes, I do.
The Coroner said there was no need for him to go over the evidence after the assistance they had received from the Inspector. The deceased was well acquainted with the rules, and should have stopped the machine at once when he found it was at fault. He had by neglecting to do so paid the penalty of his own carelessness.
The Inspector said he did not wish to make the observation unkindly, but it could be easily understood that there might have been some little chaff going on between the girls and this young man, and that this might have hindered Whitfield from stopping the machine at once.
A verdict of “Accidental death” was returned.
Next time another victim dies from the same explosion.
R. S-S