Coroner’s Inquests 1858 cases
There were 120 cases in 1858, presented over eight sub-pages.
The deaths of wealthy sisters, Elizabeth Horlock and Alice Sudell, who both took malaria, or low fever, from the poor sanitation of the graveyard adjacent to their home, was seemingly clear enough. What was foggy, even miasma-like, were the string of events preceding it – abusive and threatening letters found around their property, the ransack on Miss Sudell’s home by an intruder, talk of deeds to a rich mine property. It all sounded to me like a Sherlock Holmes story.
Two gun-shot deaths tellingly show how easily a little carelessness with a lethal weapon can lead straight to death, 17 year old George Akerman took a gun out on a cart journey with his father when a jolt in the road caused it to go off, and Edward Dowdeswell asked his sister to pass his gun across the brook to him…
The stigma of illegitimacy is clearly seen in the case of Fanny Tugwell’s infant child, and the destitution of the journeying she was forced to make in the hope of finding assistance and a safe harbour where she might have her child. Another supposedly safe harbour was the Fisherton House Asylum in Salisbury, where, in the Criminal Lunatic Ward No.8., Catherine Clark secreted a flat-iron and used it to slay Mary Kenney. The Coroner, Mr Wilson, was not assisted by any useful advice from the Secretary of State as to whether, being insane, she was incapable of being responsible for a wilful act of murder.
Among the usual array of Natural Causes deaths, mostly expected cases of the elderly and infirm, is as good a definition of the verdict, Visitation of God, as is seemingly possible, the deceased – Mary Gardner – being found at her bedside, knelt in the aspect of prayer. In a similar vein, I thought, Richard Sutton set out to see his niece, but felt faint, called at the Inn for a glass of beer and a pipe, laying on the straw for a while, then, having started to return home, he fell into the arms of William Deadman and passed away without speaking a word.
Unofficial medicine rears its head once more in the cases of James Wix and Jane Mould. In the latter it was a Mr Maddox whose treatment using homoeopathy was criticised, and in the former it was Benjamin Crook, who usually operated as that most steadfast village character – the Blacksmith, at Ogbourne St George – but who also operated on cancers using poisons.
Horlock, Elizabeth & Sudell, Alice – Box
Dowdeswell, Edward – Ashton Keynes
Goodfellow, John – Marlborough
Mussell, infant – Barford St Martin
Hulbert, Emma – Riddleston St Nicholas
Coleman, male infant – Hilmarton
Willoughby, William – Highworth
Tugwell, female infant – Castle Combe
Plank, William – Great Cheverell
Unknown male infant – Barford St Martin
Unknown female infant – Westbury
Love, Isaac – Bradford on Avon
Harding, George – Coombe Bissett
Beckinsale, Charles – Marlborough
Unknown male child – Market Lavington
Ranger, Thomas – Christian Malford
Unknown female infant – Devizes
Coates, Ellen – Kington St Michael
Mustoe, William – Brokenborough
Wcks, James – Ogbourne St George
Hambling, Iddo – Brixton Deverilll
Cook, James – Bishops Cannings
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