1/ Croydon Road, Newcastle, January 1903 (Double Murder/Suicide)
William.A.Lauderdale was a 35-year-old book-keeper, who lived with his wife and son, who was twelve, at Croydon Road in Newcastle. Something clicked one day, sort of Amityville style, when Lauderdale went to his son’s room and shot him in the head, next was his wife who he also shot in the head. Then he turned the weapon on himself. When found the parents were both already dead, but the boy clung on to life for another hour or two. The reason for this strange act was probably due to the fact that they were a sickly bunch and illness had been rife in the household. Lauderdale had had consumption a while back.
2/ River Tyne, September 1851 (Seven Girls Drowned)
A steam-boat from Newcastle to Marsden Rock was on a pleasure cruise and stopped at Howden to take on some passengers. Another boat put off with eighteen people on board, but the tide and waves managed to tip the boat over and seven young girls aged between twelve and twenty-one were lost forever. Again, as is common in Victorian boat disasters, the boat was over-crowded, this too caused it to over-balance in the other boat wakes.
3/ South Shields Tragic Accident, March 1888
4/ Newcastle-upon-Tyne, November 1909 (Butcher’s Shop Suicide)
A middle-aged woman walked into a butcher’s in Shields Road in the district of Byker, grabbed one of the knives and plunged it into her throat. She collapsed on to the floor and the butcher pulled the knife out, but she had done what she set out to do and died there and then. Unknown identity?
5/ Newcastle-upon-Tyne Suicides, January 1894
Two servants, totally unknown to each other, one named Hall, the other Thomas, committed suicide by taking carbolic acid. They were both nineteen years of age and had had a bust-up with their boyfriends which was the reason for the double deaths. Young girls were very likely to do this type of thing when their boyfriends split up with them or a simple argument.
6/ Hetton-le-Hole Murder, December 1872
7/ Sunderland Harbour, January 1885
The schooner Lady Ann Duff from Nairn drove ashore early on Saturday morning behind the south entrance to Sunderland harbour while a heavy sea was running. The master and mate of the vessel were drowned.
8/ Ship Hotel Murder/Manslaughter, Sunderland, April 1919 (What Happened?)
The manager of the Ship Hotel in Sunderland, Richard Miles Bell aged forty-nine, was charged with causing the death of 45-year-old Matilda Alban, a rivetter’s wife who was discovered dead, outside the hotel on a Friday morning. Bell was found in a room covered in blood spatters and with broken glass everywhere. He was drunk and covered in cuts around the face. A hatpin that belonged to Alban was found in the manager’s room and a cap that belonged to him was next to the corpse.
9/ Newcastle-upon-Tyne (This has nothing to do with murder or suicide or accidents, but just thought it gives you a good idea of police pay in Victorian times.) March 1872
10/ Gateshead Murder, March 1902
A murder in Gateshead was committed on a Friday night and the perpetrator, Thomas W.Wrightson, aged twenty-seven and a time-keeper living at Fuller Place, Carrs Hill, went to a policeman and asked to be arrested. P.C. Joseph Graham was on the beat around Wellington Street when Wrightson came up to him and stated that he’d murdered his wife. Police went to Fuller Place and found Mrs Wrightson on the floor with her head bashed in with a hammer and her throat was cut too. Mrs Wrightson leaves five children with no mother and as to why he murdered his missus, there was no excuse from him.
11/ River Tyne Drownings, December 1900
12/ Pandon, Newcastle, April 1876 (Child remains)
Two women from Pandon were suspicious of a woman, Margaret Breeme, who lodged near them. The women, Scott and Sloane, saw that the keyholes had been bunged up with rags so they broke down the door and in their worst nightmares they couldn’t have anticipated what they discovered. The room itself was crawling with germs and vermin and the bodies of two children were on a bed, decomposed beyond recognition. Scott told police that Breeme had told her that the kids had gone to live at Shields with their step-father but that was obviously a lie. The children were an eight-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl and had lay dead for about three or four months.
13/ Newcastle-on-Tyne School Death, February 1908
It was the dinner break at school and no one should have been around, but a lad spotted some smoke coming from a classroom. He ran up there and found a burned corpse on the floor, thought to be female. Help arrived and it was discovered that the clothing had been burned off her and she had horrendous injuries. All the heavy items in the room (Lamps, etc) had been knocked over, so she clearly put up a fight for her life. (Who was she?/ What school was this?)
14/ Hetton-le-Hole Murder?, October 20th, 1885
Hetton-le-Hole, October 21st, 1885
Thomas Smith, who attempted to murder his wife and her mother and sister at Hetton-le-Hole on Monday morning, has been arrested, and, after being charged before a magistrate, has been remanded to await the issue of the injuries inflicted on his victims who are still in a critical condition.
15/ West Hartlepool, (Human Remains) April 1874
Human remains were found in a brick field, the property of Mr J.Richardson, Stranton, West Hartlepool. The men were excavating some clay about three or four feet from the surface, when they came across three human skulls, plus various other bones. More digging has revealed around twenty more skeletons. Theories suggest they could be the remains of sailors wrecked when the sea flooded there or it could be an overflow of burials from a church which lies adjacent. (What church?)
16/ Newcastle Lightning Strike, May 1885
Shortly before noon on Friday, a severe thunderstorm broke over Newcastle-on-Tyne. The lightning struck a girl named Gray, while she was standing at her father’s doorstep at 55, Prudoe Street, and it was found that she was deprived of her sight.
17/ Prince Albert Inn Murder, South Shields, January 1899
Thomas Potter, the landlord of the Prince Albert Inn, South Shields, died last night from the effects of wounds which, it is alleged, were inflicted by a Chilean seaman named Antonio Marin. The latter on New Year’s night was ejected from the inn but rushed back into the house, and it is alleged, that he stabbed the landlord. Potter was a pensioned policeman. Marin is in custody.
18/ Sunderland Christmas Fair, December 28th, 1885
Sunderland Christmas Fair, December 29th, 1885
At Sunderland yesterday, a girl named Isabella Nutman was remanded on bail on the charge of wounding a boy named Daniel O’Connor at the Christmas Fair. It is alleged the girl, who was in charge of a shooting gallery on Saturday night, pushed a number of boys away with a loaded rifle which accidentally went off, with the charge entering the boy’s side. O’Connor is in a precarious condition at the Infirmary.
19/ Whitley Bay Mystery, April 1908
A forty-six-year-old retired school-mistress, Wilhelmina Dewar, was found dead in very mysterious circumstances. The post-mortem found that the skin on both her legs was completely burnt and there was a bad burn on the neck and on her breast. Both arms were burned, but the hands and feet had no injuries. It also revealed that she was suffering from alcoholism, as the stomach was tested. The bed showed no signs of scorch-marks, which leads them to think that she was taken by somebody, upstairs. Died from shock, resulting from the burns accidentally received whilst drunk.
20/ River Tyne Drowning, September 1885
A case of drowning occurred off the Tyne yesterday. The smack, Queen of Beauty of Buckhaven, was proceeding to the fishing ground, when one of the crew, William Robinson aged nineteen and the brother of the captain, was knocked over by a sail and lost.
21/ Jarrow Train Crash, December 1915
This was at St Bede’s Junction near Jarrow and the death toll was nineteen dead and eighty-one people injured.
22/ Tynemouth Bodies, November 1897
The bodies of a man and a woman were found in the sea at Tynemouth. A man’s overcoat was discovered on the pier and there was £5 in the pocket and a return railway ticket from Tynemouth to Alston. Why would you get a return ticket if you intended to kill yourself? The name “John Walton, Howburn, Alton, was written on a paper. The woman was identified as Jane Elizabeth Pearly from North Shields. She had been missing since last night. (Suicide Pact?)
23/ Stockton-on-Tees, September 1871 (£900 stashed away)
A woman by the name of Miss Mary Ann Pickering, alias Sudron, lived in squalor most of her life and was regularly seen begging and was removed as a pauper lunatic to Sedgefield Asylum. What wasn’t known at the time, was when her house was entered by bailiffs of the time, they found 800 sovereigns and 200 half-sovereigns in a drawer in the kitchen. When she was a young woman she was getting married to a sea captain, but the engagement was broken off and since then she had been in a demented state.
24/ Heddon Hall Suicide, near Newcastle, November 1903
25/ Newcastle, March 1899 (Attempted Murder)
Edith Morell, a barmaid, was charged yesterday at the Newcastle-on-Tyne Police Court with the attempted murder of James Rule on the previous night by shooting him with a revolver. A policeman saw her shoot the man, who is in the hospital in a critical condition. The prisoner was remanded.
26/ Gateshead, May 1851 (Burned in Molten Metal)
The accident at the iron foundry of Messrs Hawks and Co. has resulted in two fatalities. A ladle containing two tons of molten metal was about a yard away from the edge of a fifteen-foot-deep pit. A man was working in the pit, and (you can guess this next bit!) the earth gave way and the molten metal and a labourer fell into the pit. The man who fell in with the metal was taken out dead and the chap working in the pit died of his injuries the next day. (Names?)
27/ South Shields Pier Fatality, October 1885
28/ Sunderland Murder, August 1919
An awful murder has taken place at Sunderland by a step-father named, John George Turnbull, a shipyard worker, in full view of his other step-children. The eldest, a thirteen-year-old girl, described how he turned “little Tommy” round and round as he cut his head off. “He did not lay the head down gently when it was off, he dashed it against the fender”. When she was taken out of court, she went into a mad hysteria and screamed “He will come back; he will come back. Don’t let him get me”. After what she had witnessed it wasn’t surprising!
29/ Sunderland, April 1899 (Mutilated in Engine)
At the ropeworks of Messrs Haggie, Sunderland, Kenneth the youngest son of Mr D.H.Haggie, J.P., was yesterday found under an engine, terribly mutilated, having been entangled in the machinery. Death must have been almost instantaneous. He was a promising young man and well known in the North and at Oxford, where he was being educated.
30/ Newcastle, near the High-Level Bridge, December 1885 (Two Drowned)
31/ North Shields Murder, August 1900
A Russian seaman, Raminoff, handed himself into the police station as a result of police wanting to question him about the death of 19-year-old Mary Maguire. Raminoff was seeing her on a regular basis and police went to the house where they lived together and found Mary laid on a bed, with a handkerchief round her neck. She had been dead a few hours and cause of death was strangulation. Raminoff was remanded on a charge of murder.
32/ North Shields? 1883
Thomas Leathed, the man who murdered a fellow-prisoner in a police cell at North Shields by stabbing him in thirty places, was, at Newcastle Assizes, declared to be insane, and ordered to be confined during Her Majesty’s pleasure.
33/ Newcastle-on-Tyne ? 1883
34/ South Shields Triple Murder/Suicide, August 1906
35/ Bill Quay Murder, near Gateshead, November 1902
36/ Newcastle Double Suicide, October 1854
Two young sisters named Robinson, committed suicide by throwing themselves into the River Tyne about two miles from Newcastle. The older sister had been thrown out of the house by her father while he was drunk and the younger one went out to look for her. They were found locked in each other’s arms when they were fished out of the Tyne.
37/ Shields Harbour Fatal Explosion, June 25th, 1885
Shields Harbour, August 7th, 1885
The inquest on the three men killed by a boiler explosion on board the steam tug Guide in Shields Harbour, has resulted in the verdict that the explosion was caused by the fixing down of the valves, with the cognizance of the owner, J.Lawson; and the Jury expressed an opinion that the Board of Trade survey was very indifferently performed.
38/ Boldon Colliery near Sunderland, March 1896 (Haunted Church)
The population of Boldon Colliery are of the belief that the church at Hedworth is haunted. A ghost-like figure appears at regular intervals at the church windows. The apparition is plainly visible to everyone in church, and there is much chatter going around the neighbourhood as to the cause of it. It has been constant for over a month now, and some say it bears an uncanny resemblance to the former vicar. (What was it?)
39/ Sunderland Suicides, April 1889
40/ Stockton-on-Tees Asylum Murder, January 1903
A tragedy has occurred at Sedgefield Asylum, Stockton-on-Tees, on Tuesday afternoon. A group of inmates was digging in the gardens when a patient named George Hazell did something wrong in the eyes of one of the attendants named John Dixon. After a telling off from Dixon, Hazell wielded his spade in the air and struck Dixon on the back of the head. He killed him instantly, with the head spewing its contents on the ground.
41/ Newcastle-on-Tyne Shooting, July 1889
42/ Newcastle Murder, March 1898
Alexander Thompson aged thirty-six, a labourer, was remanded at Newcastle on Monday charged with the wilful murder of Annie Irving. Witnesses spoke to hearing noises in the house on Saturday and hearing prisoner leave it an hour and a half before the body was discovered. It occurred at 10, Cannon Street, Newcastle, and Irving was a lodger with Thompson and his wife for some time. Irving had apparently been attacked with a coal rake which was nearby, and she also had burned her arms which suggested she had fallen into the fire.
43/ Sunderland Death Sentences, November 1903
44/ Dalton-on-Tees, October 1844
At the village of Dalton near Croft, an accident to a young domestic servant has occurred. She was climbing up a plum tree to get the fruit when a branch gave way and she fell directly on to a hay-fork, that was pointing upwards and leaning against the tree. One prong entered her armpit and came out under the collar-bone, another appeared in the back of her mouth. She was helped down and is progressing favourably.
45/ Sunderland Fatal Fight, June 1885
46/ Gateshead (Dunston-on-Tyne) June 1902 (Murder/Suicide)
Thomas Pierce aged fifteen and Jane Thompson aged sixteen were both servants at a farmhouse at Dunston. Pierce attacked the girl with a hammer and she passed out as a consequence. In a fit of remorse, he went to an outbuilding and hung himself with a piece of cord. Mr and Mrs Hopper who owned the farmhouse, left the two servants and another girl while they went to chapel. She was doing the washing-up and he was reading a Bible when they went out, so what happened is a mystery.
47/ Jarrow Murder/Suicide, July 1889
48/ Bishopwearmouth Cemetery Suicide, Sunderland February 1870
On the 30th of January 1870, a London photographer, George Bigot, went to his wife’s grave to pay his respects. He wrote his name on the tombstone, then dropped down dead. His wife died a couple of weeks ago in London and she had interred in Sunderland. Mentally he had been in low spirits and he told someone that his nervousness would end in his suicide. It is believed he poisoned himself with the chemicals he had readily available as a photographer. Two letters were on his person, one to the cemetery superintendent, the other to his wife’s brother, Mr Phillips. He was about fifty years of age and leaves a daughter in London. (Is Bigot grave in Cemetery?)
49/ North Shields, June 1899 (Tragic Accident)
50/ Harrington Street Murder, Sunderland, July 1897
A house at Hartington Street, Sunderland, was the scene of a murder of a middle-aged woman named Elizabeth Hutchinson. She was laid dead on the floor, and the perpetrator, an engineer by the name Scott, was fast asleep beside her. She had been raped, then killed. On the way to the police-station, Scott tried to slit his throat but was prevented from succeeding.
51/ Newcastle Barracks Manslaughter, November 1896
52/ Monkwearmouth Suicide, Sunderland May 1867
A forty-two-year-old widow named Elizabeth Smith, living in Church Street, Monkwearmouth, made a concerted effort at suicide and planned it well. Her husband, Richard, had lost his job as a master mariner due to him squandering money and he then had to get work as a sailor. He decided to commit suicide and jumped off the vessel near the Isle of Wight. She became deeply despondent at this juncture and even told her teenage daughter to not be surprised if anything happened to her. A neighbour saw her hanging from the ceiling through a window and when they cut her down, she was already dead. Next to the body was a razor and a bottle of laudanum, just in case those two failed.
53/ South Shields Drowning, June 1899
54/ North Shields Railway Suicide, October 1889
The signalman at North Shields Railway Station, John Watson killed himself by hanging in the signal cabin. This was only discovered when the train from Newcastle to North Shields and Tynemouth was delayed due to the signals not being changed to let the train into the station. Maybe this was his plan so that his body would be found?
55/ Gateshead, September 1906 (Boy Kills Playmate)
56/ South Shields Fire, July 1906 (Four Dead)
Alexander Mason and his three young children, Annie aged seven; Alexander aged five and Thomas Edward aged two, all died in a house fire. Another son, James just escaped from the flames. They lived in one room in Heron Street near the riverside. The alarm was raised just after 11 o’clock when Mrs Elliott ran out to see smoke coming from Mason’s room, she opened the door and was swamped in smoke. She tried to get the kiddies first, but her dress caught fire. Two men, Wildgoose and Ferguson, rescued the children and brought them out. The father died first, at the scene and the children died on Sunday morning. It was caused by the breaking of a paraffin lamp.
57/ Sunderland Fire, January 1890
58/ Trow Rocks near South Shields, August 1892 (Drowned)
On Thursday, while the salmon fishing boat, Jubilee of South Shields was fishing off Trow Rocks, the boat got into the surf and was capsized. Two of the men, Charles Wood and Henry Normandale succeeded in swimming ashore but the third, John Lowes, got foul of the nets and was drowned.
59/ Margaret Pit Disaster, June 1885
60/ South Shields Suicide, October 1862
Thomas Reed a chemist, took a small boat at the low part of town and gave the owner a shilling for lending it to him, then in the middle of a stream shouted “Goodbye”, then took it out to sea and then when it was deep enough he was spotted by some men to get undressed. He put the oars down, tied his handkerchief up the boat-hook to half-mast as if he was in mourning. He shouted at the steamboat men, who realised something was wrong and were rowing toward him at the time, but Reed jumped off the boat with a large stone tied to his neck and sank to the bottom. The crew of the steamboat found the boat covered with a chalk suicide note. It blamed his partner, Mr Taylor, for his actions.
61/ Hodgskie Street Murder, Sunderland. January 1890
62/ South Shields Harbour, March 1885
63/ Ravensworth Colliery near Newcastle, March 1903 (Double Child Murder/Suicide)
Martha Peel, the wife of a miner, called on Mrs Adams, a married sister, taking four of her kids with her-Ruth, John, Norman and Martha. They had some tea, then afterwards Mrs Peel asked for a razor for one of her corns. Mrs Adams lent her husband’s razor, then placed it back in a drawer when she finished. Mrs Adams went to feed a pig and Ruth aged thirteen and John went with her. Mrs Peel walked across the kitchen with baby Norman in her arms and Martha was sat at the table. When Ruth Peel came back from the garden, she ran out screaming “Aunt Polly, my mother, my mother!”. There lying on the floor with his throat cut was little Norman and Martha had a terrible gash in her throat. The mother had slit her throat and held the razor in her hand, with the walls and furniture were covered in blood spatters. All three were dead.
64/ North Shields, (Foul Play) October 1880
65/ South Shields Murder, December 1885
66/ Sunderland Murders, May 1910 (Death on the doorstep- Five Dead)
A next-door neighbour heard a man groaning in Aylesbury Street, Sunderland and went to see if he was alright, but found William Jones aged thirty-three, lying on the doorstep with his throat cut. Inside the house was a scene of carnage; the bedroom contained the bodies of Mrs Jones and her four children, the baby and Polly, Susannah and James, aged from eight to two years of age. All their throats had been slashed. Mrs Jones, in her late twenties, had been cracked over the head with a hammer, before the slashing commenced. William Jones was taken to the hospital and kept muttering “What made me do it?”. He is not expected to recover. The reason for his mad outburst was that he had been out of work for three years and they lived in abject poverty, and how they survived this long is a mystery. (Did he die?)
67/ Corporation Fish Quay, North Shields, December 1904 (Fatal Struggle)
68/ South Shields Manslaughter, October 1896
At Tyne Dock, South Shields, a Jane Doe was discovered with a bullet wound in her left eye, lying in a bunk on the steamer Hildegaarde. She lingered for a while but died soon after and never said who she was or why she did it. She is thought to be from the unfortunate class (homeless?), and had boarded the ship and stayed in the cabin of the cook, Olfe Eide a Norwegian and the engineer’s steward named Archibald Harvey. They are under arrest.
Later on:-She was later identified as Jane Heywood aged eighteen. The cook, Eide, said he left Heywood and Harvey alone in the cabin and when he came back she had been shot in the head. Post-mortem evidence suggests that the position she was found in made it impossible to commit suicide, so both were convicted of manslaughter.
69/ North Shields Fire, August 1896 (Lady Burns to Death)
70/ Newcastle-on-Tyne Execution, March 1890
71/ Royal Artillery Barracks, Newcastle, August 1896
72/ North Shields, (Hanging Fetish Gone Wrong) June 1846
Seventeen-year-old William Bowman was living with his brother at North Shields when he committed suicide. His brother was out the house for a while and when he returned, all the doors were locked from the inside.They broke open a door and he was found hanging from the ceiling. The strange thing was, that he’d dressed himself in a convict’s attire and had become fascinated with it when he observed a hanging at Newgate. He had tied the legs together and a nightcap was pulled over his head. He was obviously re-enacting an execution, but it had gone horribly wrong and he accidentally hung himself. They were both from London and recently moved to North Shields, but he watched all the executions in London.
73/ South Shields, November 1903 (Lascar is a sailor/militiaman from Asia or Arabic)
74/ South Shields Double Suicide, February 1907
The death of two South Shields teachers, brother and sister, occurred under strange circumstances. Cunningham Henderson aged 24, went to bed on Saturday night and on Sunday morning, when police broke his door down, he was lying on the floor with a massive gash in his throat. His sister, Emily aged 25, went to visit some mates of her’s on Saturday morning and did not come back. The mother asked around but no sign of her. A group of holidaymakers found her body washed up on the beach and when the mother went to identify her daughter, she broke down and went into a wild mania. They were both found at nearly the same time. (Why did both commit suicide?)
75/ Newcastle Murder, January 1890
76/ Usworth Colliery Disaster, March 6th, 1885 (Death Toll -42 dead-Youngest was fourteen years old, the oldest was seventy-five years old)
77/ Usworth Murder, April 1899
At Gateshead yesterday a young miner named William Holland of Usworth, County Durham was committed for trial, charged with attempting to murder his wife, Jane, whom he had been married only three months. It is alleged that after stabbing the woman, Holland tried to cut his own throat, but his injuries were not as serious as his wife’s.
78/ Near Penshaw Station, (Childs Body Thrown Off) March 1894
A lamplighter named Burrell, who worked at Penshaw Station, found the body of a six-month-old child lying on the railway embankment early on Sunday morning. The infant had supposedly been thrown from a passing train.
79/ Walker, Newcastle (Multiple Fatalities in Boiler Explosion) September 1870
80/ Sunderland, (Confined for Nine Years) September 1870
81/ Tyne Shipbuilding Deaths, October 1870 (Four Killed)
82/ Brockley Whins Railway Collision, December 1870.
83/ Murder on a Steamer?. River Tyne. March 1902
84/ Sunderland Murder, November 1903
Wednesday, December 9th, 1903
At Durham, yesterday morning James Duffy, aged forty0six, a labourer, was executed for the murder of a woman named Ellen Newman, at Sunderland, in September last. Death was instantaneous. The brothers Billington were the executioners. Duffy made no statement.
85/ Horrific Police Discovery, Newcastle. December 1903.
The police on Thursday night broke into the house, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, of a plumber named Pattison. He lived alone and unattended in Marionople Street. His food was usually left for him at his house by neighbouring shop-keepers. On December 5th, some groceries were left. Since that day he had not been seen by anyone. The neighbours informed the police, who on entering the house found Pattison dead in an upper room. He had evidently been dead some time. The right arm was eaten away, apparently by a cat which had been shut up in the house.
86/ South Shields Murder, November 1903.
87/ Murder of his Son, Southwick. November 23rd, 1903.
November 30th, 1903. (Reprieve)
The Home Secretary has reprieved Alfred Johnson, who was sentenced to death at the Durham Assizes for the murder of his son at Sunderland. The jury recommended Johnson to mercy, and Mr Justice Grantham expressed the approval of their actions.
88/ Fatal Fire in Sunderland, February 1904
A fire which resulted in the death of a boy took place last night in Sunderland in a house in Crowtree Terrace. The fire broke out in the kitchen, then spread up the staircase, got a firm hold of an attic in which Ernest Reaveley, aged five, was sleeping in a cot. All the other occupants escaped, but it was impossible to rescue the boy. When the firemen gained an entrance through the roof they found his body shockingly burnt.
89/ Volunteer’s Mother Shot, South Shields. May 1904.
A painful tragedy occurred in South Shields on Tuesday. Robert Usher, a young man belonging to the Durham Light Infantry Volunteer’s, was showing his father the working of a Lee-Metford rifle, and, in raising the weapon to his shoulder, pointed towards a door. There was a report and a bullet from the rifle sped through the door into the kitchen, killing Usher’s mother, who was working there, on the spot, the bullet passing completely through her body.
90/ Gateshead Murder/Suicide, December 1904 (Hellifield St, off Coatsworth Road)
91/ Fatal Accident at Messrs John Lynn, Sunderland. January 1904.
92/ Two Children Drowned at Gateshead, March 1905.
93/ Teenager Electrocuted to Death, Backworth Junction. February 1905
A shocking fatality occurred on Monday on the electrified portion of the North Eastern Railway near Backworth Junction. About eighty yards from a level crossing a young woman was found lying, having been in contact with a live rail and severely burnt on both wrists. She was conveyed to Monkseaton Station, where first aid was rendered, but on the arrival of a medical man, life was pronounced extinct. The deceased was Alice Maughan, aged eighteen, of Felling, near Gateshead. How she got on the railway has not been ascertained.
94/ Wife Murder at Whitley Bay, August 1905.
95/ Murder of a Sister, Newcastle. January 1906
Saturday, February 10th, 1906.
John Shiel, aged twenty-five, a labourer, was charged at Newcastle-on-Tyne on Monday with strangling his sister Martha, aged fifteen, in a field, in circumstances already reported. Deceased lived in a two-roomed house with six other persons, and until recently accused and a brother of eighteen, and deceased and a younger sister slept in separate beds in the same room. Owing to accused, when in drink, striking matches and disturbing the girls, their beds were recently removed to the kitchen. Sergeant Douglas said that when accused was taking the place to where his sister was lying, he said ” My father has married a second wife. She has not been good to my sister, who is soft, and would go on to the streets. I could see it coming, and wanted her out of the way before I went.”
96/ Newcastle Manslaughter, Pilgrim Street. October 1880
