T&N Rochdale, asbestos and cancer - There WAS a cover up - Part 5

Corporate concern about legal liability and 'precedents': 1924

The death of TBA worker Nellie Kershaw in 1924 coined the medical term “asbestosis”. In TBA's archive is a note explaining why Nellie's widower wouldn't be receiving any funeral expenses from the asbestos factory because to do so would: “create a precedent and admit responsibility.”

Nellie Kershaw was buried in an unmarked grave in Rochdale Cemetary.

Forty years later a confidential admission was made by T&N's lawyers about corporate tactics and knowledge of the risks from asbestos:

A letter from James Chapman & Co. solicitors to Turner & Newall directors, dated 10 September 1964, explained:

“...We have over the years been able to talk our way out of claims but we have always recognised that at some stage solicitors of experience assisted by a Legal Aid Certificate or financed by a Union would, with the advance in medical knowledge and the development of the law and being prepared to undertake the work involved in a detailed investigation, recognise there is no real defence to these claims and take us to trial...”

www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/21/spodden-valley/13950/tandn-rochdale-asbestos-and-cancer-there-was-a-cover-up

www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/21/spodden-valley/13956/tandn-rochdale-asbestos-and-cancer-there-was-a-cover-up-part-2

www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/21/spodden-valley/13955/tandn-rochdale-asbestos-and-cancer-there-was-a-cover-up-part-3

www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/21/spodden-valley/13954/tandn-rochdale-asbestos-and-cancer-there-was-a-cover-up-part-4

www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/21/spodden-valley/13952/tandn-rochdale-asbestos-and-cancer-there-was-a-cover-up-part-6

www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/21/spodden-valley/13951/tandn-rochdale-asbestos-and-cancer-there-was-a-cover-up-part-7

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