Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer – Monday 18 October 1897

The Prosecution of Denaby Main Miners.

At the Doncaster West Police Court on Saturday, a batch of colliers were summoned for wrongfully leaving the service of the Denaby and Main Colliery Company, the prosecutors claiming from each defendant the sum of 5 shillings.

The cases were before the Court fortnight ago.

On the 7th of September, a boy named Lloyd was injured in the colliery, and there being a general opinion that the lad was killed, the colliers set down the pit, this representing the charge preferred against them. It transpired that the youth was not actually killed in the pit but was brought to the surface in a dying condition and succumbed to the injuries at the Mexborough Cottage Hospital two hours afterwards.

At the last hearing the Bench dismissed one case, believing that the men had reasonable cause for supposing that the lad was killed. Mr. Hickmott who appeared for the plaintiffs, now applied for the decision the Bench in a case where one the defendant— John Brown—had left work and had not seen the boy.

The Chairman said after the case had been argued that the Bench could not separate it from the case of Fenton, heard a fortnight ago and that the proper course adopt would be to suspend their decision until the ruling of the Queen’s had been obtained, and therefore the case would adjourned sine die.