Fell down a lift shaft

A MELANCHOLY ACCIDENT has happened at the Foreign Office - Charles Coxhead, a clerk in the librarian’s department, aged eighteen, had gone to one Of the upper floors to fetch some books and send them down in the lift, which is for the express purpose of carrying books and papers only, the clerks being strictly prohibited from riding down upon it. As he did not again make his appearance, another clerk went to look for him, and ultimately discovered him lying upon the top of the lift quite dead, he having apparently fallen down the shaft, a depth of forty-five feet.

There seemed to be no doubt that, having placed the books on the lift and sent it down the shaft he had fallen into the opening, the place being exceedingly dark. The jury returned a verdict of
“Accidental death,” and appended a rider recommending “that a guard should be placed round the opening of the shaft, that a man should be specially employed to work the lift, that additional light should be provided, and that the prohibition as to the clerks riding down the lift should be rigidly enforced.”