Now! Then! Olive Mallet and her lover Alfred Gorham are charged with falsely claiming benefits for poisoning she suffered at Barnbow munitions factory (Leeds)

2 June 1917: Olive Mallet and her lover Alfred Gorham are charged with falsely claiming benefits for poisoning she suffered at Barnbow munitions factory (Leeds)

Times. 1917/06/04. Munition Worker’s Claim For Compensation. London. Get it:

Excerpt

Mallet continued her work at the Barnbow factory until September 16 [1916], when she was certified by the local certifying surgeon (since dead) to be suffering from TNT poisoning, and a weekly allowance was provisionally granted to her under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Within a few days of her having been certified to be suffering from TNT poisoning she obtained work in the factory at Abbey Wood [London], in which Gorham was already employed, he having left Leeds in July, and her earnings while there averaged over £2 18s. a week. Both the defendants were discharged from the Abbey Wood factory on October 25, and the woman then got employment with a firm of scientific instrument makers at a salary of £2 per week, and remained in that situation until January, when she left to take up work at Woolwich Arsenal [London], where Gorham was already in employment, and there her earnings were from £3 to £5 a week. All that time the woman had continued to draw her weekly compensation allowance from the Ministry of Munitions. As soon as the real facts came to the knowledge of the Ministry the weekly allowance was stopped, but the defendants continued to pretend that she was unable to work, and instructed a firm of solicitors to take proceedings under the Workmen’s Compensation Act claiming £150 or such sum as the Court might award until the claimant was able to resume work. On March 8, the Treasury solicitors having given notice that the claim would be resisted as fraudulent, the defendants’ solicitors notified the withdrawal of the proceedings. Incidentally, counsel mentioned that the male defendant was a barrister, though not practising. Detective-Sergeant Pettaway said that the female defendant said to him, “I claimed compensation for the loss of my hair and for illness – not because I was unable to work.” The hearing was adjourned.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

What happened to the case, and what happened to Olive and Alfred? £2 was about £110 in March 2023.

The big story from Barnbow at that time was censored, and I haven’t found a personal account of what happened:

Barnbow in Cross Gates was a large ammunitions factory producing ten thousand shells per week by August 1915. The worst tragedy ever to happen within Leeds (in terms of fatalities) happened at the Barnbow tragedy of 5 December 1916. 35 workers (all women aged 14 or over) were killed in the Barnbow Munitions Factory, which later became the Royal Ordnance Factory Barnbow. The plant employed 16,000 workers, from Leeds, Selby, Wakefield, Tadcaster and Wetherby and had its own railway station to cope with the daily influx of workers. The railway station had an 850-foot (260 m) platform and 38 special trains from surrounding towns and cities. An explosion from Hall 42 killed 35 workers and mutilated many more. Mechanic Mr William Parking was presented with an engraved silver watch for his bravery in saving factory workers during the incident.

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Original

MUNITION WORKER’S CLAIM FOR COMPENSATION.
CHARGE OF CONSPIRACY.

At Bow-street Police Court on Saturday, before Sir John Dickinson, ALFRED GORHAM and OLIVE MALLET, of Upper Wickham-lane, Plumstead, were summoned for conspiring to cheat and defraud the Ministry of Munitions and attempting to obtain £150 by false pretences.

Mr. Travers Humphreys, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said that both the defendants were formerly employed at a filling factory at Barnbow, Leeds. The woman, though not married to the male defendant, passed as his wife. Mallet continued her work at the Barnbow factory until September 16, when she was certified by the local certifying surgeon (since dead) to be suffering from “T.N.T.” poisoning, and a weekly allowance was provisionally granted to her under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Within a few days of her having been certified to be suffering from “T.N.T.” poisoning she obtained work in the factory at Abbey Wood, in which Gorham was already employed, he having left Leeds in July, and her earnings while there averaged over £2 18s. a week. Both the defendants were discharged from the Abbey Wood factory on October 25, and the woman then got employment with a firm of scientific instrument makers at a salary of £2 per week, and remained in that situation until January, when she left to take up work at Woolwich Arsenal, where Gorham was already in employment, and there her earnings were from £3 to £5 a week. All that time the woman had continued to draw her weekly compensation allowance from the Ministry of Munitions.

As soon as the real facts came to the knowledge of the Ministry the weekly allowance was stopped, but the defendants continued to pretend that she was unable to work, and instructed a firm of solicitors to take proceedings under the Workmen’s Compensation Act claiming £150 or such sum as the Court might award until the claimant was able to resume work. The case was set down to be heard on March 12, but on March 8, the Treasury solicitors having given notice that the claim would be resisted as fraudulent, the defendants’ solicitors notified the withdrawal of the proceedings. Incidentally, counsel mentioned that the male defendant was a barrister, though not practising.

Detective-Sergeant Pettaway said that the female defendant said to him, “I claimed compensation for the loss of my hair and for illness-not because I was unable to work.”

The hearing was adjourned.

413 words.