A native of Rushden, who had been in Canada for about twenty years, met a terrible death by electrocution in Winnipeg, while working for the City Hydro, or electricity company, on August 12.
He was Mr. Herbert Drage, a member of a family which had been associated with the Wellingborough-road Mission Church since its beginning, although there are no representatives of the family now living in the town. His father died some twenty years ago, and Mr. Herbert Drage left for Canada, with his mother and two sisters, Clara and Elizabeth, his mother dying there.
On the morning of Thursday, August 12, he and another workman were on duty cleaning and repairing standard lamps in the city streets. While Drage, standing on a ladder, was unscrewing the bulb from one lamp, witnesses saw a blue flame of electricity shoot through his rigid body to ground itself in the standard. He was killed instantly, and hung to the top of the pole for half an hour before workmen could disconnect it from the main line and release him.
The second man, working on another standard about 100 yards was, was burned, flung from his perch on a ladder, and fell to the street, breaking his leg.
The sudden rush of current through the standards was a mystery to officials, but it was thought that one of the main lines of the street lamp circuit had crossed with another line, bringing “foreign” current into the circuit. Drage’s seared body led them to believe that the shock must have been one of 3,000 to 4,000 volts.