Jacob Finch (1866-1935) – death in a sandpit

Jacob Finch (1866-1935), Mary Ann Dodd (1870-1901) and Annie Elizabeth Lacey (1872-1955).
My great-grand uncle and aunts.

Jacob Finch was born in 1866 in Reigate, Surrey, the son of Isaac Finch and Phoebe Ann Ward, and was baptised on 19 August that year at St Matthew’s Church in Redhill.

The 1881 census reported him working as an errand boy, living at home with his family in Chart Road, Reigate. A few years later he joined the army. Records show he enlisted for 12 years as a gunner in the Royal Artillery at Aldershot, Surrey, at the age of 19 on 23 June 1885 – regimental number 49442. At the time he was working as a groom, and his certificate of education was listed as 4th Class. He was described as almost 5ft 8ins tall, with a dark complexion, blue eyes and distinctive webbed 2nd and 3rd toes.

He was transferred to No 9 Battery of the 1st Brigade of the Welsh Division of the RA in 1887 and was stationed for a time in Ireland, being discharged from the service at Fort Westmoreland in Cork in March 1889 after being classed as medically unfit for service because of epilepsy. A hearing had taken place in Cork, where his character was described as very good but his medical record revealed that he had spent several days in hospital in Dublin in 1887 suffering from vertigo. By November that year he was hospitalised with epilepsy and in 1888 the medics reported having seen him having a fit at first-hand during a 42-day stay in hospital. During his discharge hearing, Jacob said his first fit had been in 1886 but officers said the condition had not been caused or aggravated by military service, ‘vice’ or climate. He was discharged to 4 Glovers Road in Reigate.

In 1891 Jacob was working as a shoemaker. Five years later he married Mary Ann Dodd, who was baptised in Redhill in 1869. They had a child, Nellie, in 1898 but Mary Ann died young in 1901 and was buried on 18 June at St Mary’s in Reigate. Later in the same year, in which the census lists him as a labourer at a chalk clay quarry, Jacob remarried. His bride at the parish church on 22 September was Annie Elizabeth Lacey, a widow who was born in Gloucestershire in about 1872. In the 1911 census Jacob was listed as a contractor’s carman and was living with his daughter Nellie, Annie Elizabeth and her daughter Elsie Annie, aged 13, at 12 Kings Avenue, Redhill.

Jacob, who later moved to St Mary’s Road, died on 15 May 1935 after a rather gruesome accident at work.

The Surrey Mirror newspaper reported on the inquest and misadventure verdict that followed Jacob’s accident at work and his subsequent death at East Surrey Hospital. The incident happened in a Reigate sandpit owned by a company called Clays. Jacob was described as a sand-getter, but was acting as brakesman on a horse-driven railway vehicle at the time he was crushed between it and an arch. The court heard that the brakesman would normally be at the back or front of the vehicle, while Jacob was at the side.

A witness said he saw Jacob, who’d acted as a brakesman before, staggering to the centre of the arch behind the truck. He rushed back and saw the skin had been grazed on his left arm and that there was a cut above the elbow after the truck had caught him and rolled him against the wall. Jacob went to hospital, where he later died of a pulmonary embolism. The mine’s owner said it was the first incident of its kind and the Ministry of Mines said there had been no breach of regulations.

The funeral took place on 21 May at Reigate Parish Church with interment following in Redstone Cemetery in Redhill. Annie lived until 1955, when her death was registered in Reigate.

Sources: Ancestry.co.uk, Findmypast.co.uk, the British Newspaper Archive (Surrey Mirror several editions including Friday 24 May 1935), National Archives, Surrey Family History Centre (Woking).