Somerset Epitaphs

At Paulton (1829), Shepton Montague (1845). Witham (1858), and elsewhere.

Our lives hang on a slender thread

Which soon is cut and we are dead

So reader boast not of they might

We're here at Noon and gone at Night.

Mr James Watts, of Paulton, tells me that the subject of this verse is that Churchyard was precipitated with eleven others down Paulton Engine Pit when the ropes broke, The pit was so named because it was the first pit in Somerset where an engine was installed.

A large stone lying flat in Midsomer Norton Churchyard commemorates a most melancholy catastrophe:-

In this grave are deposited the remains of 12 undermentioned sufferers, all of whom were killed at Wells Way Coal Works on the 8^th November 1839, by the snapping of the rope as they were on the point of descending into the pit. The rope was generally supposed to have been maliciously cut.

From Midsomer Norton

James Keevil aged 41

Mark Keevil aged 15

James Keevil jun. aged 13

Richard Langford aged 45

Farnham Langford aged 15

Alfred Langford aged 13

James Pearce aged 17

William Summers aged 24

William Adams aged 20

From Welton

Leonard Hooper Downing aged 13

Amos Dando aged 12

From Radstock

John Barnett aged 41

The stone was erected at the expense of the masters of the coal works at which the lamentable event occurred.

The “Church Rambler” (1876) says: - The Coroner's jury returned a verdict of “Wilful Murder against some person or persons unknown,” it being supposed that the rope, which was new and strong, had been maliciously damaged.

Taken from 'Somerset Epitaphs' (Second Series) “How” and “When” Death Came' by A. S. Macmillan. 

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