Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 19 June 1903

Denaby Miner’s Despicable Theft

Action by the Colliery Company
Prisoner Sent to Gaol

At the Doncaster West Riding Police Court on Saturday, before Mr. Godfrey Walker, presiding, and Mr. J. Chester Coulman, James Kerry, miner, whose address was given as Nottingham, was charged in custody with larceny at Conisboro’, on the 30th May.

Prisoner pleaded guilty.

Mr. W. M. Gichard, of Rotherham, prosecuted on behalf of the Denaby and Cadeby Main Collieries, Ltd.

Mr. Gichard, in opening the case, said the prisoner was a miner, and formerly worked at Cadeby Main Colliery, and with three other men, who were also miners, worked in stall number 70, in the west district of that colliery.

The custom in regard to the work by the miners was that the whole of the men working as coal getters, in one particular stall, and that payment for the work done may be made by the company, in accordance with their regulations and bye-laws, to any one of the four men, or more individuals, who were down on their books as contractors.

The practice had been that one man of the number of miners should, for convenience, and for the time being, go down to the offices on Saturday, the pay-day, and receive the money earned in the stall by both the miners and the trammers the previous week, made up to wages day, which was usually the Wednesday preceding the Saturday when the money was paid.

In that particular week Saturday was the 30th May. The defendant was working on the afternoon shift, and that being so he would not be working at all on the Saturday, and so it was the most convenient to all the persons interested in that particular stall where the prisoner worked that he should draw the money, and it was eventually arranged that he should draw the money due to the four miners, two trammers, and one day man, all of whom worked in that particular stall, and the amount due was £7 7s. 1d., and it was paid over to the defendant.

Under his arrangement, instead of paying over to each of the persons the amount that was due to them, he paid nothing, but absconded with the lot.

That was a very great hardship inflicted on some of the men, who depended on it, and who had only their weekly wage to make provision for their families during the coming week, and to meet the liabilities of the past week.

The men, when they did not see the prisoner, made enquiries, and attempted to find the man. They afterwards learnt that he had left, and had gone to Nottingham.

In the regulations that bound the men to the company, so far as their work was concerned, it was laid down that every man, and not the company, was responsible once they had paid the money over to one man, who had so arranged with his mates to draw the money, and the company were entitled under the bye-laws to pay one man, therefore he must see that all those entitled should receive their share.

They had no claim against the company at all. The men in that instance were not able, on account of not having sufficient money, to take proceedings against the prisoner, and the company had taken them on their behalf, and they asked that the Bench would inflict the severest punishment on the prisoner the law allowed in such cases.

It was one of the most despicable thefts that could be perpetrated.

Joseph Barratt, miner, 74, Clifton Street, Denaby, said he, Alf. Lamb, Caleb Simpkins, and the prisoner were four colliery contractors, coal getters in one of the stalls at the Cadeby Main Colliery, up to and including the 30th May. Witness bore out Mr. Gichard’s statement. They had not received any of the money yet.

Sam Foster, Yew Cottage, Conisboro’, a wages clerk in the employ of the Colliery Company, also gave evidence.

The prisoner asked the Bench to deal leniently with him. He was tempted, and his wife and children were starving.

The Chairman said no one could imagine a more unjust, a more cruel, a more cowardly, and a more unmanly act that a man could do, to rob a fellow man of his earnings.

The prisoner would have to go to gaol for three months.