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Thank you. That is really helpful. I will email you and it would be nice to see the very short report - just a transcription is fine unless you have time to get a copy next time you go there.

My mother's life was totally changed from what it might have been because of losing her father when she was 4 months old. Her mother never had much money. On the other hand I suspect because she was then an only child she had a bit more attention as no siblings and was able to go to pass the 11+ for grammar school and qualify as a teacher but even so it was very hard to grow up without a father. She used to go with her mother to do debt collection work for small debts as a child  and her mother was school caretaker by 1939 census  and there was certainly not much money at all. It was quite sad as William was one of ten children and only five including William survived childhood and then William died too which left his parents with only 4 out of 10 children. We do have a few pictures of him.

It is very good of you to try to keep alive the memory of these shipyard workers who died. I always wondered if he might have jumped to his death and they tried to cover it up and that was why there was no records that I could find but he had been married just 16 months or so with a new baby and his wife , was very happy and her family were Catholic so suicide was extremely unlikely and I am sure the death cert is true - that he fell from a height at work.

My grandfather William Weston Robinson died on 2 April 1930 after an accident at Sir John Priestman's shipyard.
"Died of injuries sustained at work at Sir John Priestman's shipyard".  We have his death card/holy picture which gives those details.

Death Cert says "fracture of the skull due to falling down the hold of a ship in course of construction whilst following his employment; accidental".

interestingly despite my many searches of the British National newspaper database to which I subscribe and letter to coroner in the area it does not seem to have been reported in the newspapers at the time which is unusual as most inquests were. Nor does the John Priestman trust have any records of it. My huge coincidence the shipyard owner - Sir John Priestman was an organist and he played the organ at the wedding of the parents of my father in 1917 in Sunderland. My father the child of that union then married my mother in 1953, my mother being the only child left without a father aged 4 months on that death in 1930 at the shipyard.

It would be a good to have some public list of all these deaths just as there are for coal miners. The death had huge implications and my grandmother never married again nor had any more children.

On the below  I think Samuel Laughton (Peterhead)  was probably  the older brother of my ancestor Isabella Laughton who was born about 2 years later in Peterhead and ended up aged 18 living as a live in servant in the NE - North or South Shields/ Tyneside and marrying there twice. That would also tally with her brother moving down in 1841 too.

I have not been able to connect Samuel and Isabella Laughton however other than that they were born 2 years apart in Peterhead and both ended up in the NE of England however.

"Hi Linda,

I think my 4X great grandmother Mary Laughton nee Robertson is possibly the sister of Susan's father, Joseph.
 
So far I've been unable to find concrete evidence to link Joseph and my Mary but I think you'll agree that the following evidence of their closeness indicates that they were almost certainly related in some way.

My Mary Robertson married Samuel Laughton, a sailor in Peterhead in 1824 and over the following years both Samuel Laughton and Joseph Robertson witnessed the baptisms of each others children in Peterhead.
In 1841, both families were living in Milbourne place in North Shields.
Susan's brother Frederick was a witness at my 3X great grandmother's wedding and another brother James registered the death of Samuel Laughton in 1848.
Looking at the 1851 Census,  Susan's mother Mary appears to have taken in the youngest Laughton child, Elizabeth when she was orphaned in 1849 following the death of her mother in the Cholera epidemic.

That's all for now but I'll get back to you with a bit more information today or tomorrow.

Kind regards
Carolyn