Text

E-book Disability in industrial Britain : A cultural and literary history of impairment in the coal industry, 1880-1948

---

Penilaian

---

On 5 September 1908, Frank Eaves, a collier from Tonypandy in the Rhondda Fawr valley, south Wales, stood before Judge Bryn Roberts at Pontypridd County Court. Eaves had met with an accident while working underground in Blaen-clydach Colliery in 1906, when a stone of half a hundredweight had fallen on his foot. He had not worked since that time and had been in receipt of compensa-tion from the insurance company that covered the liabilities of the Blaenclydach Colliery Company. The company had exerted pressure on Eaves to accept a lump-sum payment for some time and had now brought a case before Judge Bryn Roberts to terminate the compensation payments on the grounds that he was sufficiently recovered to resume work. The insurance company drew upon the expert medical testimony of four doctors who all testified that Eaves now suffered ‘neurasthenia’, an ill-defined condition of the nerves, and one often associated with malingering, rather than the effects of the accident in 1906. For their part, the South Wales Miners’ Federation, who supported Eaves in his case, instructed medical opinion and three doctors testified that Eaves was suffering from a ‘functional disorder’, loss of sensation in his leg, and that he was unable to use his foot and to continue work underground.In the event, the judge found in favour of the insurance company and ordered the termination of the compensation payments. He stated that he believed that Eaves’ present condition was due to his ‘long abstention from physical labour’. He did not accuse him of malingering, he said, but he did think that Eaves would be much better if he had gone back to work. Expressing his concern at the larger number of neurasthenic cases coming before the courts, Judge Bryn Roberts stated that ‘he was convinced that the man would have recovered if he had only made a determined effort ... he thought it was absolutely in the man’s own interests to go back to work, otherwise he would become an incurable invalid’.1Miners’ leaders in the Rhondda valley reacted with fury to the decision. Dai Watts Morgan, the Agent for the Rhondda No. 1 District of the Miners’ Federa-tion, opined at a meeting of lodge delegates of the District that Eaves was a man of ‘unblemished character’, who had led ‘as clean a life as anyone of them’ present, but the moment he met with an accident, ‘he became a vagabond and a dishonest person’.2 Watts Morgan’s reaction in this case was also coloured by the numerous compensation cases that had been decided against miners by Judge Bryn Roberts in these years. Again and again, it was noted, Roberts had found against injured miners and had dismissed cases or else terminated payments at the request of coal companies and their insurance companies.3 The feeling was such that delegates at that Rhondda No. 1 District meeting discussed the possibility of strike action to protest Roberts’ judgement. Another trade union leader, the fiery Charles Butt Stanton, was even more critical of Judge Bryn Roberts and referred to him scathingly as ‘boss union smasher’ who tried to ruin the miners’ union by bleeding the Federation’s resources through his numerous decisions against its members in compensation cases.

---

Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

-

No. Panggil

941 BOH d

Penerbit

London : Manchester University Press., 2019

Deskripsi Fisik

288 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781526124326

Klasifikasi

941

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

-

Subjek

History of Modern British Isles

Info Detail Spesifik

-

Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

-

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

Komentar

---

Anda harus masuk sebelum memberikan komentar