The Star, Tuesday 8 September 1863
(Ballarat, Victoria, Australia)

NEWS AND NOTES
On Monday, at the White Hart Hotel, Ballarat, Dr Clendinning held an inquest on the body of William Jenkins, whose death, according to the evidence and the verdict of the jury, took place on the previous day at the Ballarat District Hospital, and was caused by injury to and compression of the spinal chord from a heap of stone having accidentally fallen upon the deceased on the 5th of August whilst he was working in a stope in the Victoria Quartz Mining Company’s claim, at Clunes. The deceased was a native of Cornwall, and was aged about forty-four years. He was married, and has left a wife and three children. His parents’ names were Thomas and Elizabeth Jenkins. The deceased was one of a party working a contract of stoping for the company. The men were filling up the stope with mullock, and the deceased was stooping, when a large heap of dirt or earth fell in from the side of the stope, struck the deceased, and covered him up except part of his buttocks. He was in a half-sitting position, with his head crushed between his legs. The deceased had local medical advice; but growing gradually worse, he was brought into Ballarat on Thursday last, and sank and died about six o’clock on the morning of Sunday. The place where the accident happened was six or seven feet in width and four feet in height. The roof was all timbered, but the earth came away from the side only. The stone mullock which fell weighed about six or seven tons.

Contributed by Bob Bolitho