Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Wednesday 21 September 1921
Suicide at 14.
Terrible Shock for Denaby Main Mother.
The second case in five days of suicide by hanging is reported from Denaby Main, the victim this time being a 14-year-old glass hand, Thomas Spriggs, of 14, Edlington Street.
The boy returned home yesterday after having worked a night shift at Mexborough and went to bed at 7.30. He rose again about 10 o’clock, when he had some breakfast, and sat talking with his elder brother. At about 11.30 he remarked. “I will go back to bed.”
About noon his mother discovered him hanging on the inside of his bedroom door by a strip of bed linen which had been fastened to the knob outside and thrown over the top. His feet were about 12 inches from the flow and it appeared as if he had jumped from the bed. The mother screamed and her son rushed up stairs, but was too startled to cut down the lad, and ran to the colliery to fetch his father. The screams, however, attracted the attention of neighbours, who cut down the body.
At the inquest last evening the father was unable to account for the cause of the act. The boy had been to her delicate from birth, but had always ‘appeared cheerful and had never threatened to take his life.
A verdict of “Suicide during temporary in sanity” was returned.