Sewer Trenching
This picture shows trench digging for laying water or sewage pipes in the late 1930s. When the sewer was built from Westerham to the outlet at Dartford in the early 1880s, twenty-three miles of trench had to be dug by manpower alone. No tunnel boring equipment was available at that time, so the sewers were constructed (like the first underground railways of London 1860-70) by the method of ‘cut and cover’ – deep trenching, then brick-arched tunnels were constructed before the surface road was replaced on top. Every hill they came to the trench had to be dug deeper to ensure it was level for the whole distance. When the men were digging the trench through Market Square in Westerham a fatal accident occurred on February 13 1880, when a substantial quantity of earth fell back into the forty-foot deep trench, burying and suffocating two men.
From the Herald: “…an inquest held at the Warde Arms Inn the following day, before James Rogers Esq, Coroner for West Kent, on the bodies of Maitland, and Boyes, the two men who lost their lives in the accident reported; the verdict returned by a Jury of Tradesmen of the Town, of whom Mr J Edmed was chosen Foreman; was to the effect that the two unfortunate men were suffocated by being buried with the fallen earth; both were Married Men and left Widows and Children to mourn their loss. Mr Bingham, the contractor, having headed a Subscription List with £5, we believe the sum of about £80 was collected…”
To put this figure into perspective, consider that a general labourer, which both Maitland and Boyes (the two men killed) would have been – at that time earned around £40 per year for six ten-hour days each week.
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