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Archiver > AUS-NSW-SE > 2002-03 > 1015637687


From: "Ken and Lorraine Neate" <>
Subject: Re: Fatal Blasting Accident - HUGHES; HAMMOND; MYERS; FARQUHARSON; WISEMAN
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 12:34:47 +1100
References: <000201c1c5c4$29679280$a0cd09d2@lavinia>


Well, the Kiama newspaper record was not nearly so graphic!

Many thanks though for the article. Thought some might appreciate a bit of
the less clinical :

William Hammond was my g-g grandfather. Timothy his son was also killed in
the accident although that is not clearly stated.
This was unfortunately the first of a series of family tragedies resulting
from working in the quarry.
Timothy's wife was expecting their second child at the time of his death.
Another brother Robert was killed in another quarry accident in 1901- he
died a couple of days before he was due to be married.
William's son in law Thomas Stokes (my g-grandfather) was also killed in the
quarry in 1903. He left a wife and five children the youngest of whom (my
grandmother) was only about 18 months old at the time. In order to keep food
on the table in the days before workers compensation and pension benefits,
Thomas' two oldest sons continued to work in the quarry after he was killed.
They were aged 14 and 12.
Yet another son of William, George Hammond, was very badly injured in
another blast which left him blind and with only one arm.
On a happier note- Their womenfolk must have been hardy souls - Cecelia
Hammond (wife of William) ended up raising Timothy's children. She also
acted as a local midwife in the area. She died aged 88 in 1924.
I cannot think how any mother would feel to send her sons off to work in the
quarry which had resulted in the death of her husband, father and two
brothers. Jane Stokes also took in washing to support her family, and the
local schoolteacher for Bombo Public School (when that was a single person)
boarded with the family. Jane died aged 86 in 1955.
My grandmother, Eva Hamilton (nee Stokes) never thought she had "missed
out" on anything (in a material sense) even though the family had lost the
chief breadwinner. She died in 1990, just before her 89th birthday.

Lorraine

----- Original Message -----
From: "Purified Honey Bee" <>
To: <>
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2002 12:26 AM
Subject: Fatal Blasting Accident - HUGHES; HAMMOND; MYERS; FARQUHARSON;
WISEMAN


> The contents of this article may be SENSITIVE to some readers!
> Contains descriptive material on a fatal blasting accident.
>
> The Bowral Free Press, Saturday, May 12, 1888
>
> FATAL BLASTING ACCIDENT
> A terrible accident took place at the Bombo Quarries, Kiama, on Monday. It
appears that two men were charging a hole 20ft. deep in a column of basaltic
rock some 60ft. in height. While ramming home the charge it suddenly
exploded, bringing down a huge mass of rock, which in its descent killed a
man named John HUGHES, cut both legs off a man named William HAMMOND, who
was otherwise terribly mutilated and expired from his injuries, and buried
his son Timothy beneath the mass of stone. One poor fellow whose name is
MYERS, was thrown upon his back underneath tons of rock, where he remained
several hours jammed, as it were to the earth, and his foot had to be
amputated before the unfortunate man could be extricated. Besides Myers, two
men named FARQUHARSON and WISEMAN, were seriously injured. A mass rock, some
50 tons in weight, fell upon a horse and cart, crushing them to peices. On
Tuesday Myers died from his injuries.
>
>
> ==============================
> To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records,
go to:
> http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237
>
>

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