Coroner’s Inquests 1849 cases
There were 155 cases in 1849, presented in nine sub-pages.
It’s one of those strange aspects of the last moments of life, that people do have premonitions of death, I well remember an elderly neighbour of mine who pointedly visited all the places he had known in the few days before he dropped down dead, and Ann Dyke seemingly knew of her own imminent demise when she beckoned with hand signals her neighbour to come into her home with her, where she sat down and died.
When William Young was found dead in bed, one’s sympathy was immediately dulled by reading what he did to his children, and what was afterwards found in his house. Sympathy is not possible with some of these cases.
The case of the death of Stephen Anstell is the earliest I have found to state that the man was trespassing when he walked along the railway line – one wonders at the mentality of anyone who, seeing a train about to depart along same line, should then walk straight along the track in front of it.
Child labour was not limited to factories, as witness nine-year-old George Potter, employed – as no doubt his parents also were – by Mr Tayler, of Edington, taking a horse to Keevil, where he lost control of the beast and ended up being dragged along the road by his leg, with terrible injuries. Susanna Ferris, aged 13, was working in a factory in Melksham, and met a depressingly familiar end by means of a moving pulley.
This was an infamous year in the history of Salisbury, a year when a national outbreak of Asiatic cholera took off more per head of population in Salisbury than any other town its size in the nation, due in no small part to the medieval drainage channels which had for too long been a carrier of uncleanliness, along with the prevalence of courtyard housing rustled up by unfeeling landlords in the rear gardens of city street-front properties, and which lacked in all the necessaries of privy, running water and waste removal. The disgusting state of the formerly beautiful and life-giving water channels of Salisbury – which once gave it the name of the Venice of England – had already brought about their covering-over, which in many ways increased the problems by hiding blockages and further impeding flow.
These same landlords of many poor tenants, also had their hand in running the city, and it would not be until the turn of the following century that the city would eventually get a proper sewer system. An editorial on July 14th says of cholera – “If no medical man is at hand, a simple remedy may be obtained by taking 20 grains of opiate of confection in a little peppermint water. That the disorder is non-contagious is now ascertained beyond a doubt, and its prevalence appears to depend upon what we might call a negatively-electrical condition of the atmosphere; while its attacks are confined to those who, either by indulgence in excess, constitutional debility, or an abode in unventilated and ill-drained neighbourhoods, are predisposed to its reception. We repeat that, by the exercise of due precaution, there is nothing to excite apprehension in this visitation; but that a nervous dread of the attack should be carefully banished from the mind as being one of the predisposing causes.”
And this suggestion to disinfect a property – “A mixture of three parts of common salt and one of black oxide of manganese, should be placed just inside the outer or street door of the dwelling-house, and a little common vitriol poured upon it.”
Infected water was but one of any number of sanitary issues in Salisbury at this time, and the fact that the local press chose not to report deaths by Asiatic Cholera – for fear of exciting terror in the reading population – is a clear indication of the seriousness of the outbreak. The first mention of fever pertains to the Fisherton Gaol in April, but of course the cholera outbreak was countrywide, and in the case of Ellen White at Bradford on Avon a clear indication of potential cause is nearly explained – the river Avon being low at the rear of the property, various accumulations were exposed, and here the children played.
Martin, Elizabeth – Chippenham
Everett, Thomas – Donhead St Andrew
Neat, male infant – Littleton Drew
Farr, John – Manningford Bruce
Palmer, male infant – Wootton Bassett
Ellis, Sarah – Ebbesborne Wake
Gilman, Elizabeth – South Marston
Shafflin, Priscilla – Salisbury
Jefferies, Emily – Marlborough
Dike, Elizabeth – Bradford on Avon
Parsons, Priscilla – Trowbridge
Cleverly, William – Trowbridge
Taylor, Maria – Wootton Bassett
Cheeseman, William – Horningsham
Wiltshire, Emma – West Kington
Beasant, Henry – Wootton Bassett
Anstell, Stephen – North Bradley
Poulton, Charles – Somerton Parva
Wiltshire, William – Bradford on Avon
Ingram, William – Stratford-sub-Castle
Townsend, Charles – Brinkworth
Gould, William – Longbridge Deverill
Churchill, Elizabeth – Tytherington
Morris, Reuben & Burbidge, Adam – Salisbury
Downe, John – Monkton Deverill
Ball, Martha – Longbridge Deverill
Ball, Thomas – Longbridge Deverill
Howe, Hannah – Bradford on Avon
Potter, George – Steeple Ashton
White, Ellen – Bradford on Avon
Jobbins, Edward – Sherston Magna
Johnson, Elizabeth – Bishopstone
Bullock, Mary – Bradford on Avon
Carpenter, Sarah – Upton Scudamore
Garratt, female infant – Horningsham
Walley, William – Dilton’s Marsh
Lawrence, female infant – Ramsbury
Nitland, Richard – Great Cheverall
Berrett, Thomas – All Cannings
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Wiltshire Coroner's Inquests 1801-1920 