1894

Posted by bensloper.

Several 1894 cases stand incomplete due to the Salisbury Times not following up initial reports.

The Plowman railway suicide is one of a number of cases I have found of former soldiers who had been in India and who have had severe illness with persistent mental trouble. Frederick Felstone’s death was foreseen by a number of people who saw him riding the shafts of his vehicle through Tisbury, whilst the Penruddocke case shows that a clean and labelled bottle carried into a chemist’s shop was quite sufficient to procure whatever deadly poison one required.

The Tanner, Springford and Hopkins cases all involve – we assume – unwanted pregnancy, and follow the all-too-frequent pattern of these cases, with the exception that the Tanner case ends up being a blame-game between the two female witnesses.

The Flint case gives the obvious advise that one should not really feed a two-week-old babe on Bath Biscuits and milk. Having a reasonably quiet baby was probably somewhat of a boon to the parents in the Dowdell case, but the child was peaceable, alas, for a reason. The Woodgate case is not the first drowning at Harnham Mill, but does describe that the path and narrow wooden bridges were totally unfenced at this time.

Finally, I must admit I read the case of George Dunn with some cynicism – what sort of fall did the poor man have at the Fisherton Asylum for him to suffer an eye-wound and eight broken ribs, one puncturing the lung?

Pearce, Richard Chippenham

Boyd, Adam Swindon

Smith, George Shrewton

Miles, May Netherhampton

Young, William Ebbesbourne Wake

Edgington, Frank Laverstock

Felstone, Frederick Tisbury

Newman, George Westbury

Saillard, Victor Sherborne

Skelt, Sidney

Springford infant Newton Toney

Flower, Charles Woodford