This years starts with the Head case, a truly awful burning in which it did not seem possible to properly extinguish the flames, so that when the doctor actually arrived he found the victim lying in a smoke filled room in a mess of ash and cinders. Two more awful burnings are the Cox case and the Kelly case, featuring a little boy and some matches.
The Martin case shows the poor quality of the courtyard housing in Salisbury at the time, and the unaccountability of the landlords. The Bowles case seems almost inexplicable – how was it possible for the man not to hear the whistling engine slowly approaching behind him? The Dunford case seems to be suggestive of petrol fumes.
Another interesting railway debate is the Maslen case, the deceased stepping between two shunted vehicles at the wrong moment at Amesbury Station, and sustaining fatal injuries, but there seems to be interesting variations on how vehicles are supposed to be coupled by shunters, and who is responsible for providing coupling poles. The medical man on the scene seemed incapable of doing more than ordering brandy from three miles away.
There is also debate in the Walke case, the cyclist causing the car to swerve, but the car must have been speeding to crash so violently.
The Hayter case seems to show everything needed in a circumstantial sense to demonstrate suicide, but for the hard evidence of it. The deceased even leaves a note saying to smash his furniture rather than leave it to the Board of Guardians. Another object lesson in being careful how you eat is given by the Ando case which occurred in the dining room of the Fisherton House Asylum.
Musselwhite, Herbert Sherfield English
Grant, Frank Winterbourne Stoke
Kent, Henrietta Harnham/Fisherton
Winterton, Sheliah Milborne Port
May, Cecil Great Durnford/Salisbury
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Wiltshire Coroner's Inquests 1801-1920 