Coroner’s Inquests 1866 cases
There were 79 cases in 1866, presented in five sub-pages.
I have not readily brought attention to industrial deaths like that of Richard Tompkins, because, like drownings and vehicular accidents, they were commonplace events and nearly always betray gross inadequacies in safety precautions. Such things could not happen under Health & Safety legislation. In smoothing cloth at Messr’s Webb’s factory in Trowbridge, one of his hands was drawn between the rollers, and before the machine could be stopped his body had been drawn in and he was killed instantaneously.
Mrs Cook, grocer, etc., of the High-street, Malmesbury, also stocked gunpowder on the top floor of the premises, where a young lad in her employ named John Curtis found his way, out of curiosity one must suppose, and having found the stock of lucifer matches kept at the entrance-way, which seemed damp to the touch, he tried one to see if it would light, dropping it on the floor. Forty-five pounds of gunpowder exploded, the deceased being projected to the roof of an adjoining house.
Two cases of rash eating. Little Harry Cull enjoyed being with his mother in the garden as she collected peas, especially when she gave him several, which he ate with relish, then playing and romping about, when he suddenly choked. Thomas Saunders, fifteen years of age, thought a farthing for two oranges a good bargain, and ate them directly. Except that they were partly rotten, and he was found by Milford Bridge in Salisbury lying on the bank vomiting and in great pain. Mr Winzar performed a revealing post-mortem examination. I will spare you the details here.
Josiah Antell seems to have been a violently tempered farmer, and when he discovered some young lads sheltering from the weather in his hay-loft, he lost his rag and set about them with an ash stick and his fist, Samuel Killey, aged fifteen, falling in the yard and being taken up apparently lifeless, which he would later prove to be. There is an interesting split in the testimonies of the boys and the farm labourers also present. One senses applied pressure.
One of the constants in this collection, from start to finish, is the temporary but fatal absence from the house of a parent, only for a child to be somehow ignited into fire or scalded by hot liquids. The case of Charlie Windle is the first in which a Wiltshire coroner openly speaks in favour of using fire-guards – a theme which would be repeated endlessly throughout this collection.
Edward Gale, and then his mother, Mary Gale, both played host to some family friends, on which occasion all present got together to prepare a large plum pudding, and all were taken ill afterwards from arsenic poisoning, but how was such a poison introduced into the meal?
Ranger, Elizabeth – Maiden Bradley
Waters, Charles – Maiden Bradley
Killey, Samuel – Berwick St John
Musselwhite, George – Homington
Smart, Robert – Donhead St Andrew
Perring, Elizabeth – Malmesbury
Sainsbury, John – Winterbourne Earls
King, infant & Unknown male infant – Warminster
Tompkins, Richard – Trowbridge
Lampard, William – East Knoyle
Maton, James – Donhead St Andrew
Unknown male infant – Salisbury
Mullins, infant – Winterbourne Earls
Goodman, Elizabeth – Marlborough
Singleton, Henry – Donhead St Andrew
Norris, Reuben – Bradford on Avon
Unknown female – Etchilhampton
Adams, Edwin – Donhead St Mary
Newth, Thomas – Wootton Bassett
Chapman, Edwin – Bradford on Avon
Stride, Charles – Kingston Deverill
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Wiltshire Coroner's Inquests 1801-1920 