A Grim Almanac of the Black Country by Nicola Sly

Author:Nicola Sly
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752489520
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2012-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

A colliery gin, 1830s. (By kind permission of Dennis Neale)

7 JULY

1845 Eleven-year-old Joseph Slater was working underground with two other young men at a pit owned by Lord Ward at Rowley Regis. The three were working in a remote part of the mine and it was supposed that, while hacking at the coal with picks, the boys opened a pocket of foul air. The boys were working with candles and there was an immediate explosion of firedamp and Joseph was burned to death. His two companions, who were the sons of the mine manager, were also badly injured but are believed to have survived.

An inquest heard that the area had been checked for gas earlier that day and recorded a verdict of ‘accidental death’, attaching no blame to the mine manager.

8 JULY

1932 Mr and Mrs Hodgkinson of Brinton Kennels in Streetly, Walsall went to Brighton for the weekend, leaving the business in charge of kennel maid Ethel Corey and kennel boy Harold Hayward Wilkins. On 11 July, sixteen-year-old Wilkins contacted the police and informed them that there had been a burglary. Officers arrived to find Ethel bound and gagged in a bathroom. She was dead.

Harold’s account of the burglary didn’t quite ring true and he was arrested and charged with wilful murder, appearing at the Staffordshire Assizes in November 1932. The prosecution suggested that Harold left his bed in the garage and entered the house, tying a ligature around Miss Corey’s neck and asphyxiating her, before staging a robbery as a cover. The defence contended that the youth, who was known as a practical joker, intended only to jump out at Miss Corey and give her a fright. His prank backfired when she dropped dead and, when he was unable to revive her, he bound and gagged her and ransacked the house to divert suspicion from himself. Medical evidence suggested that Miss Corey died from ‘mental shock and concussion’, and that the ligature around her neck appeared to have been placed there after death.

The jury took just thirty-five minutes of deliberation to find Wilkins guilty, although they recommended mercy on account of his youth. Significantly, Mr Justice MacKinnon didn’t don the traditional black cap to pronounce the death sentence and, as was widely expected, Wilkins was reprieved a week later. At that time, the Children Act was undergoing revisions and in April 1933, an amendment was introduced forbidding the death penalty for persons under the age of eighteen.

9 JULY

1872 Eleven-year-old Richard Woolley was fascinated by trams and was a familiar sight around the West Bromwich tramways, where he pestered the drivers relentlessly. Very occasionally, they allowed him to ride alongside them.

On 9 July, he was riding with the driver when he suddenly jumped off the tram in West Bromwich High Street while it was in motion. He stumbled on landing and fell onto the rails, where one of the tram wheels ran over his head, killing him instantly.

Coroner Edwin Hooper held an inquest, at which Richard’s parents stated that

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