JNF-The-Working-Class-Struggle-of-Half-a-Century

10 WHEN INJURY AND DEATH
MEANT NOTHING
Can you imagine how a mother would feel when the head of the family
is laid up by injury and on pay day there is no money coming in?
Worse it would be if the injury results in death. The grief would be
severe enough at the outset: but when a family faces a blank future
through the disablement or sudden loss of the bread winner, this is
bound to be the cause for sore distress. Worst of all - in the setting of
a few decades ago- a family thus meeting misfortune could not hope
for anything by way of benefits under the law. Such was the fate of
workers who suffered from accidents arising from their work; such
were the disabilities of the social and industrial system at that time.
The employers had nothing to worry about. “Men gone; men
here.” The situation was cynically summed up in that way. The injury
of a worker or the loss of his life meant little or nothing to the boss. As
a matter of fact the chief concern of the employers was to make profits
from their business. There was then no law for workmen’s compensation.
There was nothing beyond meager pauper relief to be offered to a
limited number of destitute people. There was not even the dim shape of
a Labour Government at that time.
William Duggins
A long list of cases can be brought up to prove the facts, but a single
one would be sufficient. On 20 th April, 1933, a cart man on Buck-leys
estate, William Duggins was killed outright when a factory locomotive
collided with the mule cart he was driving. It was said that when the
news was reported to the estate manager, the first question he asked was
if anything had happened to the mules.
At the coroner’s inquiry which was held on the following day,
one of the witnesses was James Duggins, the son of the unfortunate
man. James said he was a cart man working as assistant to his father on
a four wheel cart drawn by four mules. That Thursday afternoon, they
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