Mine work was dark, damp and dangerous. Conditions often led to accidents and miners could easily be injured or even killed. This accident book records the names of miners injured at the Loftus mine in Skinningrove. The commonest causes of injury were from roof falls and barring (the practice of bringing down loose stone from the face or roof using an iron bar). Other accidents involved men being run over by heavy tubs filled with freshly mined ironstone or crushed by the horses that pulled them, and there are numerous incidences of men & boys with broken fingers or sprained wrists caused by sprags (pieces of wood or metal wedged under the wheels of the tubs to stop them rolling while being filled).
The lives of ordinary people have often gone unrecorded in history; this is an important reminder and useful record of the Skinningrove fathers, brothers and sons who were injured and killed mining the iron that would build constructions around the world.
Image courtesy of Cleveland Ironstone Mining Museum
