Doc and Club

"Doc and Club"

Sick Pay & Accidents

There was a charge of one shilling per month for each man on the pay roll, and during the 50 months of the Cost Book this amounted to £155.33.

My understanding is that "Doc & Club" was a form of insurance for sick pay, and it appears that this was not given to anyone at Wheal Agar until January 1857, when four men received sick pay for short periods during the year.

In December 1857 there was an entry which read 'Horse & cart with a man hurt home' and it cost 2/6. The unfortunate man was Francis Vivian who was putting in a ladderway in the new Engine Shaft. His wife collected his sick pay of £1.50 in January 1858, and Capt. James Champion received expenses of 3/- for taking him home. Francis Vivian's accident must have been serious as he continued to receive sick pay of £1.50 for the next 13 months after which it was reduced to £0.50 and finally stopped at the end of July 1859.

There were further instances of employees receiving sick pay during 1858 and 1859, including one of the ore dressers, Tabitha Mitchell.

Sadly in September 1859 there was a fatal accident in the mine. The stark entry against Mathew Hooper's name, a supplier, was 'Calico for S. Jones killed' costing 1/6. In the October accounts there were further details in that the company paid Edward Stoneman the sum of £2.13 for coffin and burial fees for Simon Jones. He had been listed in the Cost Book as a boy working as assistant smith to John Cock. Also in the sick pay list a Richard Jones received £5 for Simon. Richard Jones was the mine Timberman and he could well have been Simon's father.

From the beginning of 1857 until the end of the Cost Book in November 1859 the amount paid out in sick pay was £58.83, plus related expenses for calico and travel.

One accident is always one too many, and especially when it is fatal. Perhaps there were more unreported accidents and given the working conditions in the 1850's it would be surprising if there were not.

Every day the miners had to reach their work by slippery ladderway only lit with a tallow candle stuck in a lump of clay on their hats.

The air would be heavy with fumes, gunpowder and rotting smells. The miner needed to be alert and look at the floor as well as the roof, as the drives would be punctured at intervals with old winzes or completely mined out and replaced by stulls and timber walk-ways with missing planks. In the stopes considerable agility was required to reach certain areas as the stope was advanced and a slip could cost a life. Then the work of hand boring, charging with gunpowder by the light of candles, shovelling heavy rock, wheeling it to the shaft, and finally at the end of shift climbing ladders back to surface, followed by a long walk home, for 6 days or nights each week of the year. What a life!