Source: Leeds Intelligencer
Date: 1818 12 28
Subject: Fatal Accident
Another fatal accident occurred on Tuesday night in consequence
of the very unsafe state in which the Leeds and Liverpool Canal basin
near to Water Lane in this town is suffered still to remain. On the
above night, about eleven o'clock, Mr. John Lobley, a mill-owner at
Farnley, and Mr. John Whitfield, a cloth-searcher, at Pudsey, left the
Queen's Head at Mill-Hill, both on one horse, and proceeded over Leeds
Bridge towards Farnley. Soon after they had passed the small bridge
leading out of Water Lane towards the canal, one of them observed it
was a dismal dark night, and it was well they were so perfectly acquainted
with their way. This conversation was scarcely finished before the horse,
owing to the fog, quitted the road, and fell with its riders into the
old Canal basin. Some time after, Mr. West, master of a stone-vessel
lying in the basin, being alarmed by the cries of some person in distress,
hastened from his cabin and, with the assistance of Mr. Andrew Coulman,
and his mate, and some of the workmen employed by the Union Company,
rescued Mr. Lobley and his horse from their perilous situation. Whitfield
had sunk to rise no more, and though diligent search was made for his
remains the body was not found till Friday, having floated from the
place where they had plunged into the water, on the south side of the
old basin, to the north east corner of the new basin at the point nearest
to the Waterloo Ford.
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