Coroner’s Inquests 1860 cases
There were 125 cases in 1860, presented in ten sub-pages, including 4 cases on the Railway, 17 burnings and scaldings, 4 involving horses and 10 cases of victims being run over, 3 cases of baby suffocation, 12 drownings and two I term industrial.
Julia Whitlock had terrible pains in her jaw, and her husband being a chemist allowed her to use chloroform externally, but it seems to me that she became addicted to the stuff, applying it not to her skin but by inhalation, and this led to her end.
Mary Woolford, a domestic servant, had become pregnant, and when about to give birth, had gone secretly to Bath where a Mr Hind, of Stroud, performed an illegal abortion. She returned to work the next day, having told her employer she had been invited to a wedding, but soon became fatally ill. Behind all this, of course, was the stigma of illegitimacy and possibly the vulnerability of young girls in domestic service, who were often subject to unwanted sexual advances.
The outstanding case of the year, if not the decade, is without doubt that of Francis Savile Kent, a young son, who was taken from his cot in the middle of the night, taken from the house to a privy, stabbed and almost decapitated by person or persons unknown, and left in the privy. The Road Hill House Murder was to be one of the most influential cases in the annals of crime, inspiring future crime literature – including Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone – not so much for the cool-headed brutality of the crime itself, but for the ructions it raised in society, the difficulties it posed not just to local police, superintendents and magistrates, as well as the burgeoning detective service of Scotland Yard who sent their best man Mr Whicher, but because the case was essentially a mystery. Like the best of Agatha Christie, it had to have been done by a member of the family or servants locked in the house that night. Detection was severely hampered by local officers trying to protect the privacy of this wealthy family whilst trying to implicate one of the servants – seemingly, class counted.
Smith, Charles – Fisherton Delamere
Bass, Jeremiah – Bradford on Avon
Raines, George – North Bradley
Jones, Augusta – Bradford on Avon
Nightingale, Walter – Bowerchalke
Muspratt, William – Ludgershall
Unknown infant – Wootton Bassett
Chandler, Elizabeth – Chiseldon
Draper, Elizabeth – Kingston Deverill
Raxworthy, William – Warminster
Unknown male – Winterbourne Stoke
Maxwell/Jacobs, Mary – Salisbury
Pembrook, Alfred – Great Bedwyn
Lewis, Thomas – Great Somerford
Fisher, Henry – Stratton St Margaret
Reynolds, Samuel – Hinton Charterhouse
Kent, Francis Savile – Rode (The Road Hill House Murder)
Leonard, William – Orcheston St George
Boughton, Alfred & Powell, John – Salisbury
Stratton, William – West Lavington
Goodfellow, Frederick – South Newton
Plummer, Thomas – Christian Malford
Trowbridge, Eli – Donhead St Mary
Pope, George – Kingston Deverill
Moulding, William – Wanborough
Greenhill, Benjamin – Southwick
Fisher, Alfred – Donhead St Mary
Miller, Frank – Orcheston St Mary
Buckland, Ann – Bradford on Avon
Cummings, Richard – East Lavington
Kelly, George – Berwick St John
Harford, Daniel – Bradford on Avon
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Wiltshire Coroner's Inquests 1801-1920 