This year starts with the Franklin case, a tragic suicide. The Hobbs case concerns lack of foresight, keeping too close to a pony that has been stabled for three weeks without exercise. There are several motor fatalities, including the Sturgess case, and the Hill case at Amesbury.
The Redford case concerns a soldier, working the transports after recent army manouvres, who collapses and dies. The medical opinion suggests he may have taken too many aspirin tabloids. The verdict recorded is ‘Visitation of God.’ The Farley case is the sad end of a working man who no longer work, is being cast out of his tied cottage, and cannot face the inevitable registration into the Salisbury Union workhouse.
Genuine violence is told of in the Williams case, whereas the selfishness of suicide is shown in the Ball case, the deceased leaving behind a possible charge of the theft of some potatoes, but also a bereaved wife and four children.
Two later cases in the year are of interest. The Lewis case shows the unbelievably obvious peril of wearing cotton-wool from head to foot, and then lighting a cigarette. The Marks case is an inevitable motor car accident with a young girl as the victim, but with added interest in that a witness appears to criticise the speed of the motor, although the witness was in a shop 90 yards from the scene of the accident and could not possibly have seen it. Thus is the rising interest in the dangers to all of the motor car demonstrated.
Weston, Henry Orcheston St Mary
Furness, Harry Berwick St James
Witchell, Charles Berwick St James
Garrett, Frederick Maiden Bradley
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Wiltshire Coroner's Inquests 1801-1920 