Domestic Strife at Denaby

Richard Wright, miner, of Denaby, was summoned at Doncaster, on Tuesday, by his wife, Eliza Anne Wright, of 61, Firbeck Street, Denaby Main for having been persistently cruel to her, and she applied for a separation order.

Mr F. W. L. Crawford represented the wife, the wife said they were married on June 8, 1919, and there were two children, aged six and four.

The marriage had never been a happy one, and her husband thought she was “doing wrong with other men.”

In February, 1921, she took a separation order out against him, but since then they had lived together. One night recently he came home drunk and accused her of having been out. She denied it and he struck her in the eye. He was going to strike again when she put up her hand, and he knocked her thumb up. He pulled on the floor and having lit a cigarette with a piece of paper, through the lighted paper on her pinafore. On account of such cruelty as this she left him.

Eliza Beasley, married, of 56, Loversall Street, Denaby, also gave evidence on behalf of the wife.

The defendant denies being cruel to his wife, and said he struck her in the eye under great provocation. He had been off work from the colliery for 31 weeks, and then went back before he was fit, and had now had to give up working again.

In answer to Mr Crawford the husband said that his average wage when he was working at the pit was 50 shillings a week and for playing the piano he got five shillings, a night making another 15 shillings a week.

An order was made for the payment of five shillings a week towards the maintenance of his wife.