The Shields Daily News 22/01/1918 reads

Killed in shipyard.
"A verdict of 'Accidental death' was returned at an inquest in Newcastle last evening on Annie Keenan, aged 20, of Whitworth Street, Walker, who was killed whilst working at the shipyard of Messrs. Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson, on Saturday. William Clark, a joiner, said that he was working in the trunk hatchway of a ship about 31 feet above a tank. The hatchway was all covered except at one side, where there was a hole measuring five feet across, through which a ladder extended from the tank to the top deck. There was a beam by the side of the ladder. He saw deceased come up the ladder and step onto the platform. She turned round with one foot on the beam and the other on the platform. She then made a move as if to go further up, when she slipped and fell through the hole in the hatch covering on to the deck beneath. When he reached her she was dead."

The Newcastle Journal 22/01/1918 reads:

"The circumstances attending the death of Annie Keenan (20) of Whitworth Street, Walker, employed as a joiner's labourer at a local shipyard, were inquire into at the Newcastle Mortuary last night. The evidence showed that the deceased had gone up a ladder and stepped onto a beam, when her foot slipped, and she fell onto a tank below, a distance of over 30 feet. When picked up life was extinct. A verdict of 'accidental death' was returned."

Acknowledgments: John Gallon; Dorothy Hall