WROTE HIS OWN OBITUARY

Evening Star, Issue 15342, 17 November 1913, Page 7

WROTE HIS OWN OBITUARY

FROM PIT-BOY TO COLLIERY MANAGER. Before taking his life, George Enoch Law ton, a well-known North Staffordshire mining engineer, who shot himself in lus bedroom at a Stoke-on-Trent hotel, suggested the form in which his obituary notice shoidd appear. " Let the ' Sentinel' office know," he wrote to a relative, " that I was a Freemason, P.M., and Past Companion Royal Arch; a. director of tho Longton Cottage Hospital; hon. treasurer of the North Staffs Institute of Mining Engineers, and played First League- football with Stoke for six years, from the age of 16 to 22." After other information the letter proceeded : " Started lifo as a, pit-boy ; earned mou<vy sufficient to be articled to Mr J R.. Haines, Adderley Green Colliery, for three y<?ars; surveyor. Talk Collieries, two■ years; agent "and manager of Harecastlo Collieries and Lawton Estates, seven years; also acted as agent and manager of Birchenvrood Collieries, four years.*' I.awton was a widower, and lea.ves a son in Canada, and a daughter aged 13. At the time- of his death he was engaged. He asked thai, his body should be' cremated. A verdict of "Suicide whilst insane" was returned at the inquest.