Warwickshire

1/ Coleshill Suicide, June 1865

2/ Coton Church Death, December 1882

A peculiarly distressing case of sudden death occurred at Coton in Warwickshire. The Rev.G.R.Pennington, the vicar of the parish, had just finished a more than usually impressive sermon when he sat down and expired. His wife, who was present at the service, witnessed his death and was first to reach the pulpit after the sad event. Deceased had suffered from heart disease.

3/ Kenilworth Murder/Suicide, December 1872

4/ Mill Bath, Leamington, February 1895

5/ Leamington, Warwickshire, January 1890

6/ Chilvers Coton, Nuneaton, May 1855 (Suicide on Wife’s Grave)

William Moore of Attleborough, known as the “Smoking Butcher”, was found on his wife’s grave in Chilvers Coton church-yard with terrible self-inflicted razor cuts. He did it in full view of the public, so much so, that he was stopped by civilians from doing any further damage. Moore was carted off to the workhouse and had his wound sewn up. (Did he survive?)

7/ Whiteacre Station, Coleshill, February 1861

This really is stomach-churning in its deliberation and calmness of the suicide. It was at Whiteacre Station, Coleshill, and a chap called Cotterill, about twenty-seven, saw the train coming into the station, he laid himself full length on the rails and let it ride over his body. There were witnesses and they observed the head of the deceased fly off when he was struck. It ended up twelve yards away, showing the force with which he was hit. Obviously, he didn’t survive.

8/ River Cole, Coleshill, May 1882 (Drownings)

9/ Warwick Murder, December 1875

At Warwick Assizes, James Haywood, a labourer, was charged with the murder of seventy-year-old Hannah Tenant. Prisoner confessed to the crime and said that Tenant was a witch and had given him the evil eye and caused him to become ill. He was acquitted on the grounds of insanity and ordered to be confined at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

10/ Leamington Servant Shooting, March 1871

Mr Thomas Umberts of Weston Hall near Leamington has accidentally shot his female servant. (Weston Hall still there?)

11/ Warwick Suicide, January 1889

The suicide of a school-girl has caused quite a stir in the town of Warwick, where she attended the Girls High School. Elizabeth Chandler was the daughter of a Leamington jeweller. She left school on Friday but never went home, so her father went looking for the 12-year-old. He saw two men with her dead body in a wheelbarrow, they had fished her body out of the canal when he found her clothing on the bank. Elizabeth also left a note on her desk telling her Mum she was going to die. It stemmed from the deceased getting some stationary in another girl’s name and she feared the consequences so she stripped off and dived into the canal.

12/ Foleshill (Attempted Murder) April 1885

13/ Rugby, May 1873 (Human Head Found)

The Irish mail arrived from London at Rugby at 10-25 p.m .on Saturday, when the fireman went to rake out the fire-box and recoiled in horror when he saw a human head inside. It was fairly recognisable but had singe marks on it. Mr Livock, the station-master, instigated a search further up the line. A mile and a half back, at Willesden Junction, was the trunk. It is believed it was the remains of a gentleman who was returning from a cricket match. The head has yet to be identified and was sent to Willesden. (Who was it?)

14/ Leamington (Concealment of Birth) January 1901

A young girl named Ellen Cartwright, a domestic servant at Leamington was arrested at Shifnal (Shropshire), by Det.Sergeant Ryder and brought back to Leamington. This was down to information police gleaned from a search of a garden at a house that she was working at. The remains of an infant were discovered and she is the prime suspect in the concealment of the birth.

15/ Nuneaton Station Fatality, March 1899

16/ Bentley near Atherstone, March 1910 (Murder/Suicide)

Sixteen-year-old Edward Mitchell from Preston Bagot, used to work for William Lane, a 79-year-old farmer from Bentley. He was accused of being cruel to his cattle and words were exchanged which ended with the threat from Mitchell that he would “get his own back”. Mr Lane was sat reading a paper by the fire with his wife then Mitchell shot him through the window, then ran off and blew his own brains out in a stable near the house.

17/ Rugby Suicide, February 1858

Mary Over was an elderly married woman, who committed suicide by hanging herself at Rugby. She was reminiscing about her days when she was a matron at Rugby School and missed her “Tom Brown’s Schooldays”. She had become sullen and depressed as she hankered for the old days and the jury agreed with medical evidence stating that “Deceased destroyed herself while in a depressed state of mind arising from monomania”. ( Monomania- An exaggerated or obsessive enthusiasm for one thing)

18/ Leamington, March 1860

Mrs Mary Ann Dale, formerly of Dorset Square, London, went to visit a cousin in Leamington, at Mrs Wood’s, Upper Parade. One morning she was seen by Dr Morgan and had breakfast and all seemed well. What the Doctor didn’t know was that she had got all the love letters and keepsakes from her husband, and torched them all. Then she climbed up to the top floor of the building and jumped out of a window, and landed the thirty-five feet onto the ground below. The pavement outside is one of the busiest in Leamington and quite a crowd witnessed the suicide of Mrs Dale.

19/ Warwick Murder, July 1885 (Murder committed in a pub in 1880 in Warwick)

20/ Brook Street Murders? Warwick, November 1896

This is an awful tale of two elderly women who ended up dead in a house in Warwick. Miss Hannah Clarke, an 80-year-old and Mrs Smith, by comparison, a sprightly seventy years old, were both found dead at their home in Brook Street. A relative of their’s couldn’t get an answer and when looking through the window, saw them lying there. There were signs of struggle with furniture overturned and broken crockery everywhere. The pair were used to arguing and a neighbour had heard screams but did nothing about it. On searching upstairs the police discovered a pair of fire-tongs, and Mrs Smith’s nightcap drenched in blood. One theory is that Clarke attacked her sister and killed her, then killed herself as she was prone to sudden fits of anger and liked a tipple as well.

21/ Leamington, October 1872

John Hart, a builder, killed himself in an unusual manner at Leamington. Firstly he cut his jugular vein then tied a cord around his neck and then twisted it, forming a tourniquet. Hart had a paralytic seizure (stroke?) about five years ago, and since then he had been badly balanced. The doctor said that without the cut to his neck he would just have passed out but the loss of blood as well, all contributed to his death.

22/ Warwick, August 1907 (Mother Cuts Throats of Three Children)

Alfred Southam, a tailor from Warwick, stuck up for his wife when she was accused of attempted murder of a child in 1904. She was acquitted. Three years later, she was caught attempting to murder three kids by slitting their throats in a passage upstairs. The youngest was killed outright, the second, a girl of three and a half years, was terribly gashed and may recover and the other girl, five years old, was attacked frantically by the mother and has several cuts to her face. Neighbours ran around when they heard the kiddies screaming and were met with the mad housewife with a carving knife in her hand, begging for someone to kill her. The little one that was killed was only two months old and it is widely known that she is of weak intellect.

23/ Warwick County Asylum (Kidnap Attempt) June 1885

24/ Clifton near Rugby, September 1889

This is the story of G.F.Woodward aged thirty, a Worcester commercial traveller who committed suicide at Clifton near Rugby. About four month’s ago Woodward’s wife found a love letter in his pocket from a young lass from Cardiff. She put pen to paper and wrote and told her that the man she proclaimed to love, was indeed a married man with four kids and asked the young woman to send her any letter’s he had sent. The lass from Cardiff didn’t send them but wrote back to her saying that she would not see him anymore and to accept her apologies. The husband returns home one weekend and there was a huge row and they decided on a trial separation. What makes the matter worse was that Mrs Woodward was pregnant at the time and as a result of all this, she lost the child. Amazingly they got back together again and there was bad blood between the two. His mind seemed very unstable to those around him. Woodward left one day and put a pistol to his head and fired. His wife and children were left unprovided for.

25/ Stratford-on-Avon Double Murder/Suicide, August 1889

26/ Warwick, December 1896

Dr George Wilson, the Medical Officer of Health for Mid-Warwickshire went off to London for a little break and left his housekeeper, Mary Hawkes, in charge of the house. While in London Wilson asked his housekeeper to forward the mail to him, but none arrived and neighbours hadn’t seen her for a while, so police were called in to investigate. Her decomposed remains lay on one of the beds with twenty empty bottles of port next to her and a bottle of poison. The coroner stated she had been dead for a week and was not known to be a big drinker or of suicidal tendencies.