Frederick Walter Spafford

        Gravestone of Frederick Walter Spafford, Dore Christ Church

The writing on this small headstone in Dore churchyard is only visible when the grass has been recently cut. It reads:

In Loving Memory/of/FREDERICK WALTER SPAFFORD,/WAS KILLED IN (TOTLEY TUNNEL)/JUNE 17TH 1892. AGED 30 YEARS/HIS DEATH WAS SUDDEN MAY HIS END BE PEACE/

There is no mention of Frederick in Brian Edwards's book Totley and the Tunnel (1985, reprinted November 1989), so we thought we would try to find out who he was and how he came to die.

Frederick Walter Spafford was born on 1 January 1862 in Lincoln, the son of William Spafford, a wheelwright and threshing machine maker from Beckingham, Lincolnshire and his second wife Ann (nee Whyley).

William Spafford had six children with his first wife, Anne Swain: Arthur (born 1848), Alfred (1850), Selina (1852), Emily (1855), Horace (1857) and William Swain, born in 1859, the same year as his mother died, quite possibly in childbirth. William Spafford married again in 1860 and had five more children: Walter (born in 1860), Frederick Walter (1862), George Andrew (1863), Mary Alice (1865) and Bernard (1876). Walter and George Andrew died in infancy.

The Spafford family had moved to Newport, Shropshire by 1865 and in the 1871 Census Frederick is shown as a scholar living in Old Workhouse Lane, Newport with his parents, Selina, Horace, William Swain and Mary Alice. The family had returned to Lincolnshire by 1877 because on 8 July Frederick was baptized at Bracebridge, just south of Lincoln, along with his younger siblings Mary Alice and Bernard. In the 1881 Census, Frederick, Mary Alice, Bernard and their parents were living at Newark Road, Bracebridge and Frederick was shown as a general labourer. He seems to be missing from the 1891 Census and when he came to Totley is not known. He was living at the navvy huts on Totley Moor at the time of his accident. 

Frederick died on 17 June 1892, four months before the tunnel finally pierced through Totley Moor. The Sheffield Independent reported his death and the inquest which followed.

Monday 20th June 1892 Sheffield Independent (page 7)
Shocking Death At Totley Tunnel
A fatal accident occurred on Friday morning in the tunnel in course of construction on the Dore and Chinley Railway at Totley. A miners' labourer named Frederick Walter Spafford, of Lincoln, was engaged with another man taking down the centres on which the arch of the tunnel is built, when, without any warning, one of the heavy ribs fell over, striking the deceased on the back of the head, smashing in the skull and jamming the poor fellow against a heavy cross beam, where he hung suspended by the head until liberated by a number of men who were summoned to extricate him. He was removed to the surface as soon as possible, but expired in a very short time. The body was removed to the Cricketers' Arms, Totley Bents.

Wednesday, 22nd June 1892 Sheffield Independent (page 5)
Fatal Accident At Totley
An inquest was held yesterday at the Cricket Inn, Totley Bents, concerning the death of Frederick Walter Spafford. - Verdict, "Accidentally killed by a rib accidentally falling on the deceased's head whilst following his employment in the tunnel on the Dore and Chinley Railway."

Frederick was buried at Dore Christ Church on 20 June 1892.