Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	25th November 1929
Colliery:	Mainsforth
Cause:	Fall of Stone
Lives Lost:	1

Martin Livett, 45, stoneman, was killed by a fall of stone while working at Bishop Middleham Colliery on 26 November 1929.

Following Livett's death, 600 miners employed at Mainsforth Colliery were summoned before a special setting of Durham County Police Court on Saturday 11th January 1930, for wrongful abstention from work, and damages of 15 shillings were claimed from each of them. Only about three dozen men attended the court.

Mr. Charlton, appearing for the owners, Messrs. Dorman, Long & Co., explained that a year ago the company had decided to reopen a disused colliery at Bishop Middleham ; it was 1¾ miles away from Mainsforth Colliery. when news of Livett's death reached the Mainsforth men, 'some 180 hewers in the fore shift had a meeting at the baths and refused to go down to work.' A number of datal men and putters had already gone down the mine, but as there was no work for them to do, they returned to the surface.

He continued: "Custom was regulated by agreement and according to the Durham County Agreement in the case of a fatal accident only the pit or drift in which an accident occurred should be affected and laid idle. There was no question that these two pits were distinct pits and no connection between the two except that the few men employed at Bishop Middleham Colliery were paid, for the sake of convenience, at Mainsforth.

Speaking in the men's defence Mr. Brown-Hughes said that there were two Livetts employed by the company. 'One had only been engaged ten days at the colliery and unfortunately was killed. The other Livett was an old comrade of the men and they thought he was the victim. The fore shift men had acted out of sympathy and under the mistaken impression that the other two shifts had been withdrawn.

The magistrates decided that the 180 fore shift men should pay 15 shillings each, and the remainder of the men be asked to pay the costs.

	Livett, Martin, aged 45, Stoneman, killed by a fall of stone, address: Front Street, Tudhoe Colliery
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