Coroner’s Inquests 1839 cases
There were 72 cases in 1839, presented in five sub-pages.
The death of Benjamin Colclough was recorded as Felo-de-se (murder of self), not because he committed suicide but because he died whilst fleeing justice, being one of four men engaged in a most famous highway robbery at Gore Cross, at the top of Salisbury Plain. I note that the Jury express their admiration of the spirited and manly conduct of Mr Morgan, but fail entirely to mention the similar conduct of the labourers (a lower class).
Coroner Wilson, unusually, gave a rather untidy summing-up to his jury in the case of William Talbot, such that they opined in a long-winded fashion, “Our opinion is, that deceased came by his death by falling down stairs; his fall being occasioned by an apoplectic fit, and that if he had not fallen he would have died from the effect of the fit.”
It is easy to overlook the fact that, at this point of time, lock-gates on canals had no railings on them, and that people, like Henry Miles, crossing them, did so at their peril.
The state of play on railway works, and the lack of value of human life therein, is clearly shown by the slapdash report on the awful deaths of two unknown men. Another unknown man, probably a turned-ashore sailor, clearly on hard-times, turned up at a Wilton lodging house with a mushroom as large as a hat, and which he proceeded to eat, and which proceeded to kill him.
Tied farm-labour was a cruel form of wage-slavery, when you consider what condition 16 years old Robert Coombs must have been in at five o’clock in the morning as he was driving alone a wagon laden with cheese for Winchester fair – we do not know what place his journey started, only where it ended. Similarly, Benjamin Kill had to walk from Orcheston to Salisbury – some twelve miles – to buy shop goods for his master, and collapsed on the way.
William Turner and George Bealing both died from the effects of intoxication and hard drinking, though the latter made an oath to die like the former, and performed his task in a tap-room at Tisbury with due diligence. William Brient was induced by fellow topers to imbibe, fell in the river on the way home, and, despite hauling himself out, froze to death. Samuel Cooper, a sober industrious man, drank four pints of beer, and was then offered five drinks free by William Plasket if he would drink them down as fast as they were served. Thomas Major was very drunk driving his wagon of bone-dust, and, inevitably perhaps, fell under his own wheels. Brient left behind a widow and eight children, Cooper a widow and nine, and Major a widow and eleven. All through drink.
Ellen, William – Berwick St John
Tanner, Mary – Donhead St Mary
Unknown female infant – Fovant
Clifford, Elizabeth – Chippenham
Shergold, Lydia – Great Wishford
Jefferies, John – Wootton Bassett
Pottow, William – Bishops Canning
Unknown female infant – Laverstock
Stevens, Abraham – Winterbourne Bassett
Lampard, John & Lampard, Henry – Compton Chamberlayne
Carey, female infant – Malmesbury
Cox, Samuel – Stanton St Bernard
Lane, Susannah – Market Lavington
Colclough, Benjamin – Market Lavington (The Gore Cross Robbery)
Stevens, Leah – Fonthill Gifford
Wright, Robert – Wootton Bassett
Strange, Hannah – Wootton Bassett
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Wiltshire Coroner's Inquests 1801-1920 