Lucy ELSMORE Accident in Factory in FOD (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Tuesday, September 20, 2011, 00:04 (4817 days ago) @ kiwiceltic

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... ?