Lucy ELSMORE Accident in Factory in FOD

Lucy ELSMORE (21 Jul 1853-25 Sep 1878 Big Bush Marlborough New Zealand)
m.12 May 1873 Monmouth, Wales Richard MORSE (08 September 1850 St Briavels, Gloucestershire, England-16 Sep 1877 Big Bush, Marlborough, New Zealand)
1.Amelia Jane MORSE(Mary Jane)(16 May 1874 West Dean, Gloucestershire, England-07 Sep 1953 Blenheim, Marlborough, New Zealand)
Richard MORSE died 10 months after coming out to New Zealand of Gunshot injuries whilst cleaning his gun.
I been trying to discover what factory Lucy ELSMORE worked in The Forest of Dean were she had her serious head injury. Lucy ELSMORE had very long hair and it was caught all the way up to her scalp in some machinery at this factory.
Any ideas what kind of factory work would of been around in those days for females to work in please? or what factory she had been working in were she had her accident?
Lucy ELSMORE’s family lived around Ellwood, Newland are she married Richard MORSE around the West Dean area. Richard MORSE came from Brookthorpe, Gloucestershire, England.
Not sure if it was before she married Richard MORSE or before she had Amelia Jane MORSE. But do know the family were advised to cross the Equator as a possible cure for her. She died a year after coming out to New Zealand of Brain Softing.

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2157 views

Hi Kiwiceltic,
my goodness what a story !. As a mechanical engineer this intrigues me although sadly I have no quick answers.

As an apprentice in the late 70s we had to learn to use centre lathes machines to turn/shape metal bar etc. At wealthy Rank Xerox we were lucky enough to have numerous H&S lectures, although I still witnessed accidents with lathes during the next few years. I still distinctly remember a H&S lecturer showing us a clump of long hair that had supposedly been ripped from someone's head where it had got entangled in a bar rotating at many hundreds of rpm despite being in a "modern" = safe factory with guards over the workpiece, "panic" stop buttons you could easily press with your knee and almost instant braking on the lathe's drive motor. This lecture was an effective way to teach young men that if we had long hair(the 70s!) we had to wear caps/hairnets to restrain it. Also being warned of how such a long rotating bar can entangle in your overalls and forcibly take the wearer around with it like a rag doll...
15 years later I'm away from the obviously hazardous factory and within a seemingly much safer aerospace company, bench-testing small but powerful electric fans. We tucked our ties behind our shirts incase they got sucked in, one of my more careless colleagues lost the ends of several ties and was once virtually strangled with his nose 1" away from the fan intake before he could stop it and cut his tie away !

Take that scenario back to Lucy's time and the machines were virtually totally unguarded. The Factory Acts had been introduced but it wasn't until 1844 that basic "fencing" was introduced. That said such Rules were often ignored by employers & employees alike, piecework ruled. Instead of having their own drive motor, each machine tool was driven by long flat leather drivebelts from the ceiling where horizontal pulley shafts went back to a central steam engine or water wheel. Such machines were so powerful and couldn't be stopped quickly at all, anyone getting caught up was in great danger.
This makes good reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_Acts

I see you're an old hand on the forum wrt your family research, so forgive me for perhaps telling you how to suck eggs !.

Can you give any more detailed info at all on where Lucy lived and presumably worked, or the nature of the accident, etc etc. How do you know what you've posted, was there a report of an inquest or similar, if so this is crucial. Any extra details would help enormously, please.

I see Lucy's father was a collier, a possible clue perhaps ?

Record_ID: 14978
Entry_Number: 269
Year: 1873
Month: May
Day: 11
Grooms_Surname: MORSE
Grooms_Forenames: Richard
Grooms_Age: 21
Groom_Condition: Batchelor
Grooms_Occupation: Labourer
Grooms_Residence: Ellwood
Grooms_Fathers_Surname: Morse
Grooms_Fathers_Forenames: Joseph
Grooms_Fathers_Occupation: Labourer
Brides_Surname: ELSMORE
Brides_Forenames: Lucy
Brides_Age: 19
Brides_Condition: Spinster
Brides_Occupation: [not stated]
Brides_Residence: Ellwood
Brides_Fathers_Surname: Elsmore
Brides_Fathers_Forenames: Edwin
Brides_Fathers_Occupation: Collier
Licence_or_Banns: Banns
Date_of_Banns:
Signature_or_Mark: both mark
Witness_1: Jacob Dorrington
Witness_2: Henry Gunter
Other_Witnesses:
Officiating_Minister: Jo[hn] Jo[seph] Elsworth Vicar
Event: Marriage
Memoranda:
Notes:
Register_Reference: P245 IN 1/21
Page_Number: 135
Parish_Chapel: Parkend
Soundex_Groom: M620
Soundex_Bride: E425

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2077 views

Hi
In the vicinity (10 Minute Walk)of Ellwood were the Darkhill Ironworks Started By David Mushet in 1810 and on his death run by his 3 sons in particular Robert Mushet who developed a Steel making process (See Wikipedia) at the nearby Titanic Steelworks which was in existence until 1874, there were Men employed there and it is possible that there were Women too. Does anyone else know more about this?

The Darkhill Site is an Important part of our Industrial History and open to the public.

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1996 views

Hi Alison,
thanks for that, yes I knew of the Ironworks, this prior thread may be of interest to you.
http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=24659

It is completely logical that other industrial works producing & repairing quarrying, mining, railway machinery & tools etc would be nearby a source of iron and the area was certainly a thriving industrial area by Lucy's time, especially around Parkend.
eg
"At Dark Hill David Mushet built a second furnace before 1845 when he handed the works over to his sons William, David, and Robert. Their partnership ended in 1847. Robert Mushet, who later introduced spiegeleisen to the Bessemer process and also invented a self-hardening tool steel, formed a partnership with T. D. Clare of Birmingham and built small steelworks, known as the Forest Steel Works, some way to the north-west on Gorsty knoll. Mushet, who employed 41 men in 1851, added a cupola and a small Bessemer converter to the works in 1856 and enlarged them again after forming the Titanic Steel and Iron Co. in 1862. Financial difficulties caused the winding up of the company in 1874 and the buildings were used as brickworks in 1928 and fell into ruin later."

From the excellent & searchable 'Forest of Dean: Industry', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 5: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, The Forest of Dean (1996), pp. 326-354.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23267&strquery=darkhill
This describes many aspects of the intense industrial activity within the area at Lucy's time.

Another business that would need some rotating machinery for lifting and perhaps crushing, sifting & grading of sandstone etc would be
"Brickyards were opened in various places, including Whitecroft, Ellwood, Parkend and Staple Edge. (fn. 92) They usually manufactured fire bricks as well as ordinary bricks and several were attached to local ironworks. David Mushet, who had brickworks next to his ironworks at Dark Hill in 1832, supplied bricks to South Wales in 1843. Brickworks established by the Coleford-Parkend road at Fetter Hill by 1858 also produced pottery."

Despite apparent decline setting in wrt ironmaking but not bricks by the time Lucy was working (presumably the 1870s?), there would still have been several industrial works within the area where she might have worked. They were all dangerous places still employing women and young children. As can be seen the Factories Acts wrt H&S were still in their infancy when Lucy had her accident.
http://www.thepotteries.org/dates/work.htm

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1986 views

All I know from Family Bible was... Lucy had been working at some factory in The FOD, her long hair had been caught in some machinery Belt right up to her scalp, nearly tearing it out. And it had left her with massive head injuries and her familie were advised by Doctors of Day, that for her to be cured to travel accross The Equator as a cure for her. And she died a year after arriving in New Zealand. I know Lucy ELSMORE and Richard MORSE married in Parkend so assume The ELSMORE tribe were living in and around Parkend.

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1968 views

Hi again kiwiceltic,
I must admit I thought your question virtually impossible to answer, but I hadn't reckoned on you omitting the key point re poor Lucy being caught in a drive belt, you scoundrel !?.
That said at least it seems I was correct in guessing this in respect of her injury.

I had hoped you might have found some of the other points I raised of interest ?.
I'm sorry I couldn't be more specific wrt Lucy, but I guessed that with you being a far more experienced forum member than I, then you'd be aware of the sheer multitude of industrial jobs she might have been doing hence the difficulty researching it.

I've found another couple of sites that will hopefully be of interest. As I posted earlier, I wondered if her job was linked to her father at the colliery, of which there were several in the Parkend area ?. Although women wern't allowed to work underground in her days, then and for many years afterwards they were employed above ground particularly at the "screens" sorting and washing the coal or ore. Essentially the women stood at big conveyor belts which were guarded although not always adequately. Accidents could and did happen.
This site tells more about the work that women did right up until the 1930s.
http://www.balmaiden.co.uk/WomenUK.htm

This site lists actual reports of women's deaths due to mines accidents after 1851, so all above ground. Some of them involve hair/clothes getting caughtup, gruesome indeed.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~stenhouse/coal/pbl/England/dieng.htm

That said, I still believe Lucy was working in a manufactory workshop of some sort. As in the Far East today, women & children were employed on menial tasks such as polishing,deburring,grinding of manufactured or cast metal parts using rotating machines driven from overhead belts.

This website, http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/dickens/industrialisation/table/accidents.html although ostensibly related to the textile mills which are widely reported as the dangerous workplaces for women & children, is hopefully still of interest. It shows an official government report for 1898 compiling (just) the reported accidents, showing that there were just as many machinery related accidents in "machines & engines" workplaces as the infamous "mills", namely an appalling 42 fatal and 3,463 nonfatal accidents in 1898 alone, NOT including shipbuilding.

Again, sorry I cannot find anything directly linked to Lucy, but please note I'm from the eastern end of the Forest and not particularly aufait with Parkend etc. Also I only got "into" industrial history after moving away in the 1980s (sadly & perhaps perversely to find engineering employment!). Hopefully those members with far more knowledge of Ellwood & Parkend industry than me will help you. Good luck !.

PS I'm suffering poorhealth now related to my working past, and have had problems getting the correct healthcare and have been passed from doctor to doctor. I therefore sympathise with Lucy and her family. Although no doubt her doctors were doing their best, isn't it convenient for them to advise she move to the other side of the world... ?

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2002 views

While researching Lucy as an afterthought I tried the excellent Coalmining History site. Within their database of 164,000 accidents nationwide there was only one "Elsmore".
By coincidence it's for a boy employed by the last colliery company in Ellwood/Parkend area, I presume this may be a descendant of Lucy's ?.

Mining Accidents - ELSMORE Charles William Stanley
Name: ELSMORE Charles William Stanley
Age: 15
Date: 02/02/1914
Year: 1914
Occupation: Shifter
Colliery: Flour Mill
Owner: Princess Royal Colliery Co Ltd
Town:
County: Gloucester
Notes: No one saw the accident happen, but presumably he was trying to couple two tubs together, when a set of four tubs was brought down to the shaft siding and bumped into the rear end of those he was trying to couple. He was found immediately afterwards stooping with his head between the tubs. his skull was fractured, and he died the same day. There was no use in coupling the tubs, but no other reason suggests itself to account for the position in which he was found. The tubs on the inbye side of him had just been brought down the siding; it was therefore certain that they were not coupled to the tubs on the outbye side of him.

"....in 1898... most of the principal collieries were near Cinderford or Parkend...... included Flour Mill colliery in the Oakwood valley near Bream and Park Gutter west of Whitecroft, both worked by the Princess Royal Colliery Co."
www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23267&strquery=parkend+royal

Again I hope this is of interest, although I guess you've already seen it.

Finally, are you related to the "King Of The Dean", aka Coleford based garage-owner & 70s/80s rally driver Graham Elsmore ?

Happy Hunting, Jeff.

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2016 views

ty Jeff for this information.
Yes i am related to Graham in fact to all The ELSMORE's from The FOD.
Thro I have yet to put together the later ELSMORE families

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1821 views

Thank you Jeff, I had wondered if my Lucy had been working around the mine above ground, it made sense to me about her hair been caught on a conveying belt. But for some reason the thorought sickened me and i had bad mental images of seeing her trapped right up to her scalp. Sorry to read of ur bad health. Well i know for sure if the families hadn't come to Nz there be no me.

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1871 views

You're welcome, and don't worry about my health thanks all the same, I'm not in the same terrible situation your Lucy was in !. Personally I doubt she got caught in a conveyor belt, not by her hair unless it was waistlength as they stood alongside the conveyors and invariably wore headscarves because of the filthy coaldust. I really think it's a machine tool drivebelt in a workshop, but who knows for sure ???

Had you already seen the record re Charles' fatal accident at Parkend, I guess so ?.
Is he one of yours ?.

Jeff

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