Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Saturday 15 December 1928

Life for a Pony

Thurnscoe Pit Boy’s First Thought.

Walter Clayton (14), of 22, Grange Crescent, Thurnscoe, who was run over by some tubs at the Hickleton Main Colliery last Tuesday, is believed to have sacrificed his life for a pit pony.

When a verdict of “Accidental death” was returned, at the inquest at Mexborough, yesterday, the jury thought that the boy tried to gallop the pony away, but left it too late for himself to escape.

Evidence was given that seven tubs, through some cause unexplained, broke away from a run of 15 at the top of an incline, and ran over Clayton.

Thomas Greaves, a witness, replying to a member of the jury, said it appeared that the boy sacrificed his life for the pony, as he kept on running with it after witness had shouted to him. There were five or six man-holes to which the deceased might have run.

Mr. J. Minnikin, the colliery manager, said that at Hickleton Main they had 50,000 couplings and uncouplings in a day, and he looked .upon their type of couplings as the safest in his experience.