1/ Longships Lighthouse Suicide, October 1861

A lighthouse keeper called Harding, while off-duty at the Land’s End structure, stabbed himself in the chest with a knife. The other two tried to save him by stopping the bleeding but the following morning they raised two black flags, the distress signal. He was taken ashore where he told authorities that he did not regret his actions. On the contrary, he tried to put the knife handle in his wound as well to make it worse. Harding died soon afterwards. Colleagues and family said he seemed to be depressed of late, and a verdict of “temporary insanity” was returned. He left a wife and three children.

2/ Kynance Cove (Three Drowned) May 1905

Mr Matthias Dunn, a member of Cornwall County Council, took his two nephews on a boat trip round Kynance Cove, near Lizard. The boat capsized and all three were thrown into the sea. Dunn placed oars under the arms of one them, the other was a good swimmer, and after this Dunn swam to the coast to go and get help but he was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, a tug went to the capsized boat, but neither of his nephews was found.

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3/ Land’s End Legends, June 1869

4/ St Michael’s Mount Skeletons, January 1898

A discovery was made on the Mount when alterations were being made to the Battery of brass guns near the kitchen area. Previously it was a monastic burial ground, so when two skeletons were found 18 inches beneath the surface it probably came as no surprise. They were next to each other; one was a 40 something male; the other was a young man of about 20 years old. The one anomaly of them was the presence of a small round hole in the skull.

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5/ Penzance Triple Murder/Suicide, July 1886 

Doctor’s Grenfell, Hooking and others were in attendance, but no sign of life was visible in either victim. The murderer had been going about on the morning conversing with friends. Mr and Mrs Wren leave seven and Mrs Gerrard leaves six children.

6/ Sennen Cove (Cliff Fall) June 1857

A boy and a girl went off together one summer’s morning. The 9-year-old boy was William Penrose. Between the cove (above) and Land’s End, the lad tried to grab some gull’s eggs on a cliff ledge. Inevitably he slipped and fell but the older girl held on to him, but their grip loosened and he dropped onto the rocks below, about 200 feet. When his little body was found and it was smashed to atoms.

7/ Wadebridge, April 1887

Edwin Pinch, a 15-year-old boy, hanged himself because he would rather have died than face the wrath of his father. His father had threatened to break his neck just because the lad had not given some money to his tailor, and kept it instead.

8/ Newlyn Lighthouse Explosion, January 1896

An explosion occurred at Newlyn Lighthouse near Penzance. The keeper, William Maddern went to extinguish the lamp upstairs and discovered it was on fire. In turning off the oil from the reservoir, an explosion occurred, and Maddern was soaked in burning oil. The trap door exit was in flames, so he scrambled to the parapet, and shouted for help. He was eventually rescued but the chances of him surviving are slim. (Did Maddern make it, or did he die?)

9/ Cornwall Mock Funeral, May 1905

10/ Newquay, September 1906 (Cliff Accident)

11/ Kynance Cove, May 1905 (See Number 2)

12/ Mylor Creek near Falmouth, October 1866

Henry Nicholls was for years a schoolmaster, but for the last four years, totally isolated himself from the outside world. He bought a ship’s launch and turned it into a sailing boat, then sailed the coastline, occasionally coming ashore for provisions. He was totally alone, he accepted no visitors, and during winter months he laid up in some bay. He was badly hit last winter and had been moored at Mylor Creek, near Falmouth. A cousin hadn’t seen him on deck for several days, so he rowed to the craft. He climbed aboard and went into the cabin, where he found Nicholls with a bullet wound in his head and a revolver in his hand. The gun had been put in his mouth and the trigger pulled. He’d been dead for a few days, and the verdict was “Temporary Insanity”.

13/ Penzance Cemetery Furore, July 1888

Thomas Oates had only been married a year or so when his suicide happened at Penzance Harbour when he dived in with a hundredweight of scrap iron around his neck, secured by a washing-line. Oates, along with his wife and child, lived with his mother-in-law, and it was the friction at the home that caused him to kill himself. Two thousand went to his funeral, and this is where the trouble started. When the church official had performed his duties at the graveside, he left, and then the widow and the mother were jostled, and they tried to shove them into the grave. They then tore at her dress, bonnet and gloves and tried to tear her wedding ring off her finger. Police escorted her to the sexton’s house and eventually got her home. Jeering and haranguing continued, mainly by women who were at the funeral.

14/ Mount’s Bay, (Shipwreck) April 1899

15/ Boscastle Shipwreck, April 1899

The brigantine Gazette, of Boulogne, is a total wreck at Boscastle, North Cornwall. She was laden with coal and carried a crew of four hands, only two of whom were saved.

16/ Manacle Rocks, (Gallantry Reward) April 1899

17/ Sheviock, (Child Suicide)May 1830

10-year-old Sarah Gooding, a sailors daughter, made her father angry one night, so her punishment was to make her wear her weekday clothes to church on Sunday. The child was livid and somehow got hold of an ounce of laudanum which she swallowed and died in great agony.

18/ Jacobstow, April 1872

Mr John Uglow, a prosperous farmer in the area, committed suicide just before his mother’s funeral. As the funeral was about to begin, someone asked for his whereabouts, nobody knew, so they looked around for him. He was found in a field nearby with his throat slit from ear to ear, probably due to the loss of his mother.

19/ Land’s End, (Cliff Mystery) November 1903

20/ St Ives Drowning,  Cornwall,   August 1896

At St Ives, a small rowing boat, containing two persons capsized. One of the occupants was rescued, but the other, a young man named Henry Stevenson, was drowned.

21/ Penzance Suicide, November 1875

At the main hotel in Penzance, a lad of fifteen was employed as a billiard marker. He was on duty one night, doing a good job as usual; when the hotel closed, it was noticed that the billiard table wasn’t covered or the light put out. Nicholls wasn’t to be found anywhere so another lad did the job for him and on opening the cupboard door, for the cover, he saw Nicholls suspended by a cord from a hook in the wall. The young chap was well liked and well looked after, so the reason for his tragic act is a mystery.

22/ H.M.S. HECLA/CHEERFUL COLLISION, July 22nd, 1885

July 23rd, 1885

 

July 23rd, 1885

July 24th, 1885

The Loss of the Cheerful-Two of the tourists drowned by the loss of the Cheerful, which was sunk by Her Majesty’s steamship Hecla, off Lands End, were Mr and Mrs Chadwick, of Marvel Street, Patricroft, who were passengers on the Cheerful. Mr Chadwick has for a number of years been the Superintendent of the Patricroft Congregational Sunday School. They have no family.

July 25th, 1885

23/ Pendennis Castle, August 1906 (Imprisoned in a Castle Dungeon)

A terrible tale of how a child was imprisoned in a dungeon at Pendennis Castle was told at Falmouth Police Court. A pensioner and his wife named Emery, have been residing in the Castle. They adopted a child named John Henry Wynne, who is now three and a half years old. Emery worked at the barracks with some there noticing the child became emaciated and insular. The child vanished one day, and a soldiers wife thought they’d got rid of him. A search, however, revealed him to be incarcerated in a room 15 feet underground. When they saw him he was cowering under a table, and when they entered the room, the boy went straight to the stranger as if frightened by the foster mother. The boy was skeletal in appearance and filthy. The woman said he was kept there because he had “dirty habits”. The foster mother beat him with a stick, on the end of which was a piece of dried seaweed. They also had two insurance policies on the child (Hoping he’d die of natural causes?) The man was fined £5 and £3 12 shillings costs. The old bat got four months hard labour. When they were outside the court, a group of enraged women tried to tear them limb from limb and chasing the cab down the road.

24/ South Frances Mine, September 1906

One of the Basset group, South Frances Mine, in Cornwall, saw a dreadful accident resulting in three lives being lost. The dead were Captain Jenkins, Captain William James junior, and a mining student. Just as they were going down a fall of earth occurred, and they were all dead when brought to the surface.

25/ Liskeard Explosion, January 1899

26/ Falmouth, (Warship Fatality) August 1892

27/ Morvah Cliffs Fall, September 1894

The fearfully injured and lifeless body of Mr Taylor, eldest son of the Vicar of Morvah, was found yesterday at the foot of Morvah Cliffs. He went to bathe on Wednesday and is supposed to have fallen over the cliff to the rocks below, a hundred feet or more.

28/ Venterdon, Stoke Climsland, December 1892 (Dynamite Suicide)

James Blyth, a 27-year-old labourer, put some dynamite in his mouth and lit the fuse which was attached to it. His head was blown to smithereens and the rest of the body was badly mangled. He killed himself because he had consumption, and this had preyed on his mind, plus the fact he hadn’t two ha’pennies to rub together. Launceston Guardians had only the week before granting him relief. He was not married and relied on his brother for a roof over his head.

29/ St Mary’s Churchyard Suicide, Truro, April 1892

30/ Charlestown near St Austell? August 1889

31/ St Day, February 1902 (Child Remains/Incest)

At the house of an old man, named Stephen Holman, the remains of a small child were discovered. Holman’s daughter absconded a couple of days since, and thinking she had jumped down a mine shaft in order to kill herself, he tried to cut his own throat. Meanwhile, she was found in Plymouth Workhouse where she told staff that she gave birth to a child some years ago, and the father was her father! Holman, now recovered, admitted the accusation was true and that the child was stillborn so he buried it to save the embarrassment. The verdict was “Found Dead”.

32/ Brideaux Estate near St Blayzey, April 1858 (Drowning)

Major Croker of the Royal Marines Artillery was drowned, along with his coachman in a pond on the Brideaux Estate, which he rented off Sir Coleman Rushleigh. Croker was hoping to clear away the overgrown pond so he got a flat-bottomed boat to go and clear it. He and the coachman rowed out, the boat somehow capsized and both were sent into the weeds, where they became entangled and both drowned.

33/ Scilly Isles Explosion, July 1885

34/ Herodsfoot Powder Mills near Liskeard, (Fatal Explosion) November 1876

35/ Lostwithiel Suicide, February 1868

At ten p.m. on Friday, Sergeant Newcombe called at the home of a labourer named Tinney. He charged the eldest daughter with stealing bacon from her employer. When being questioned she denied all the charges but the officer found a large piece of bacon on a shelf, and the girl asked her mother if she’d bought it at Lostwithiel. The mother said “No”, and said it had been bought at Blazey. The policeman asked to see the shawl she wore in the afternoon, and she showed it to him. It had grease and salt on it, then he arrested her. She told him she would get dressed upstairs, and shortly afterwards he heard the sound of streaming water so they rushed upstairs and found she’d cut her throat. Blood was gushing out and despite attempts to save her, they were futile.

36/ St Just Cliff Death, May 1889

Eight-year-old Bessie Richard and Mary Richards, a six-year-old from St Just, went out to pick primroses. They didn’t come back at the set time so a search was made all through the night, with no sign of them. When dawn broke the next day, some flowers were found on a cliff edge known as Cornish’s Zawn, attached to Botallack Mine, and the two little girls were on the rocks below. One girl had a broken leg, the other had a broken neck.

37/ Cartha Martha House, Launceston, ( Lady’s Suicide) January 1885

38/ Truro, March 1892 (Suicide on Wife’s Grave)

Mr J.H.Ferris, Truro solicitor, and the deputy coroner of Cornwall shot himself while attending his wife’s grave. Mrs Ferris died about two months ago and Mr Ferris was depressed since her death, so he went her grave at Truro, lay down on it and shot himself in the head. He was a very popular member of the local community, also being a member of the City Council and lieutenant of the Truro Volunteers. (Is grave still there?)

39/ Bishop Lighthouse, (Keeper  Disappears) December 1898

The head lighthouse-keeper, Mr Ball, at the Bishop Lighthouse, was swept away by a huge wave, while on the base of the rock. The atrocious weather and high seas meant that rescue was nearly impossible. If you see a picture of this lighthouse you will notice that it is literally a rock jutting out of the sea, with a lighthouse that has been built on it.

40/ Helston, (Mineshaft Death) April 1885

41/ Penzance Promenade, February 1864

Another one in Penzance seafront, similar to the Penzance Cemetery story near the top of the page (number 13). This story involved a lady who threw herself from the Promenade and drowned. Mr and Mrs Ibbotson from Poyle, Middlesex, their daughter, Louisa Mary a single 34-year-old lady, and their female servant, arrived at Mitchell’s Western Hotel from Torquay. Miss Ibbotson, who was an orphan had lived with her cousin, Mr P.G.Ibbotson, for thirteen years. About a year ago she became interested in religious matters (some today would say cult member, religious maniac), but was suffering physically. The doctor suggested this break in Cornwall and Devon to rejuvenate her and even a change of address was mentioned. One evening they decide to go to Lizard and Kynance Cove and returned at tea time. While tea was being prepared she got up from her chair, said “Allow me to pass for a moment” and walked out to the Promenade and dropped 12 feet into the water. She was swept out to sea and drowned. Coastguard found her body later on.

42/ Helston Suicide, January 1882

A bloke named Mildrew, who was blind, went to an outhouse and cut his throat. His mother heard a noise and wet to find out what it was. Her son had slit his throat, and for three hours he kept three grown men and his Mum at bay. He also found the razor in the straw and tried to make the gash in his throat wider. The roof was taken off, and he was kind of “lassoed”.  The sheer amount of blood he lost was too much and he died shortly after.

43/ Albaston near Calstock, (Boiler Explosion) November 1885

44/ Arwenack Mansion near Falmouth, January 1888 (Rear Admiral’s Suicide)

Mrs Versturme and her husband, Rear Admiral Versturme were having dinner at Arwenack Mansion, near Falmouth. She normally sang after dinner but she had a sore throat, so just tinkled the ivories instead. Mr Versturme stood next to the fireplace and put the poker in the fire. She was just starting to play when she heard a gurgling noise and saw her husband with the poker in his hand. Mrs Versturme tried to wrestle it from him and burnt herself in the struggle, and then fainted. The two made a lovely couple, and they never really had any problems until recently, when some family worries sort of upset him. His wife had cheered him up, and he told her “You are the most cheerful companion any man could have”. Ellen Davis, a servant in the house, said she heard groans coming from the drawing-room and when she went in she saw her mistress lying on the floor, and the Rear Admiral was “struggling and banging himself about”, and she managed to get the poker from his grasp. He then grabbed a lighted lamp, so she threw a rug over it in order to extinguish it. A doctor diagnosed him as having suicidal mania, and there were four puncture marks where the poker had been inserted. They were burned as well. The poker entered the peritoneum and blood oozed from the mouth, caused by swallowing broken crockery. The verdict was”Died from the effects of wounds self-inflicted while in a state of temporary insanity”.

45/ Linkinhorne, (Death in a Mine)March 1879

A few days ago a miner named William Seymour, was found dead in Phoenix Mine. It was supposed he died in a fit, and the verdict to that effect was returned at the coroner’s inquest. He was interred at Darley Chapel. A neighbour of the deceased, the next night dreamed that a gentleman had driven up in a carriage, to the mother of the deceased, and said her son was not dead but had been buried alive. The dream being rumoured about, the next night seven or eight men went to the graveyard, dug up the coffin and carried it to a chapel. They unscrewed the lid and there was the body of their comrade still living and breathing. So convinced were they, that they sat him up and attempted a revival. One of them went for a medic and when he examined the body, saying he was dead, they quickly re-interred him. The matter has caused a great commotion

46/ Mounts Bay, (Fatal Boat Accident) August 1870

when picked up.

47/ Redruth Murder,   November 1870

About 10 o’clock on Friday night some miners, in an intoxicated condition, became very excited and quarrelsome on leaving a public house in Redruth, and suddenly one named Richards was stabbed in the hip. Blood flowed profusely and it was at once evident that very serious injury had been inflicted. Medical aid quickly arrived, but the unfortunate man died in less than fifteen minutes. Two miners named Hosking and Allen, employed at Carn Brea Mine, have been apprehended.

48/ Penzance Poisoning,  December 1870

49/ Message in a Bottle, Penzance   November 1870

50/  Messages from the Sea  December 1870 (La Guaira is in Venezuela)

Two bottles, strung together and securely sealed, have been washed on to the beach at Hayle in Cornwall, with one of them containing three letters directed to Hamburg and two sixpences to defray the cost of postage. The other bottle contains a pint of rum to recompense the finder for his trouble in posting the letters, which are from the Danish brig “Anne Georgiana”, bound to La Guayra.

51/ Fatal Stabbing in Probus,  November 1870

A shocking affair occurred one Friday afternoon on a farm in the village of Probus, near Truro. A steam threshing machine was at work, and a labourer named James Miners was employed in forking up the sheaves to the machine. Lewis Webb was feeding, and having complained without effect that the sheaves were being sent up too quickly, he threw one or two down upon Miners, who became excited, and told him if he did so again he “would give him something”. Webb then turned around and was approaching Miners, when the pitchfork held by the latter penetrated his body. The poor fellow suffered great agony and died about three hours later. Miners was secured and handed over to the police.

52/  Fatal Explosions in Cornish Mines,  November 1870   (Wheal Frances Mine/Wheal Agar Mine)

53/  Blisland, Death from Exposure.  November 1870

54/ A Fatal Accident to Lizard Lifeboat,  January 1866.

55/  Burnt to Death at St Germans,  January 1866

On Sunday morning the charred remains of a labourer named William Knight, aged sixty-one, were found in a limekiln near St Germans. The unfortunate man was addicted to drink and had been accustomed to sleep in outhouses and near limekilns. He was seen in n intoxicated state on Saturday night, and it is supposed that while standing near the edge of the kiln he lost balance and fell into the pit where he met with his fearful death.

56/ St Allen Powder Mills Explosion,  February 8th, 1866.

An explosion, the second within 18 months, took place at the St Allen Powder Mills, near Truro, on Monday afternoon. Two men were dreadfully burnt. The building in which they were working, and in which the explosion, from some cause at present unknown, took place, was completely destroyed.

February 17th, 1866.

The two men referred to in The Times as having sustained serious injuries by the explosion at the powder mills near Truro, a week ago, died on Wednesday at the Cornwall Royal Infirmary.

57/ Maker Vicar Dies in the Pulpit,  May 1866.

58/  Child Murders Child, St Stephen, near St Austell.   November 1866

59/  Fatal Gun Accident, Newlyn.  January 1867

A farmer’s son, named Alfred Hotton, of Newlyn, West Cornwall, met with a shocking accident while out on a shooting expedition on Monday. within a couple of hours of the unfortunate young man leaving his home, he was found a corpse, his three dogs sitting close to the body. /it is believed that the deceased had got out of what is known as a shale pit, where he had been hiding from the birds, and was in the act of reaching for his gun with the barrel towards him when the triggers caught by some means and the fatal accident happened. The charge had entered his mouth, taking an upwards course, and lodged into his head.

60/ Tintagel Lunatic Kills Carer and Himself,  January 1867.

61/  Padstow Lifeboat Accident,  February 1867  (Five Crew Drowned)

62/ Attempted Wife Murder, Falmouth.  March 1867.

63/ Fatality near Bodmin Railway Station, October 1903.

64/ Fatal Accident at Bishop Rock Lighthouse, August 1903. (see No 39 also)

65/  Wanderer found near Penzance,  September 1903.  (See No.19 also)

66/ Bodmin Prison Suicide,  July 1904.

67/ St Columb Murder/Suicide,  June 1904.

68/  Gamekeeper Killed on Tregothnan Estate, near Truro.   January 30th, 1904.

The inquest into the death of Henry Osmond, gamekeeper, found dead in a wood on the Tregothnan estate, near Truro, was opened yesterday. The coroner said that at a later stage a witness would state that just after Osmond was seen alive on Tuesday evening, he heard three shots fired in rapid succession in Nance Mabyn little coverts, where the body was found. The body was identified by John Dew, the head gamekeeper for Lord Falmouth, the inquest was adjourned for three weeks, by which time Robert Bullen, who admitted to shooting at Osmond, might be able to attend. Bullen, however, is in a serious condition, and his recovery is doubtful.

Saturday, February 20th, 1904.  (The Inquest)

69/  Nit0-Glycerine Explosion near Hayle  (Four Killed)   January 6th, 1904.

Friday, March 18th, 1904.  (The Final Report and Conclusion)

70/ Body of a Baby Found near St Ives.  February 1906

71/ Artist’s Shocking Death near Boscastle,  August 1906.

Miss Edith Elcock, who was thirty-five years of age, and who came from Handsworth, Birmingham, was out photographing on Tuesday at Boscastle, Cornwall and was walking along the cliff. She stopped to take a snapshot of a friend by who she was accompanied and stood with her back to the edge of the cliff, forgetting where she was. The lady stepped back to get the focus, and slipped and fell over the cliff, and apparently met her death before she reached the bottom. A boat put off, and her body was recovered and conveyed back to her lodgings.

72/ Murder at Camborne?  November 1907

73/ Patricide at Illogan, near Redruth.  June 1907

1/ Broad Street? City of London, (Body in a Box)  April 1899

Adjacent to Liverpool Street station. Demolished in 1986, due to lack of passengers. Broadgate office and shopping complex now there, nothing remains of the station.

2/ St Paul’s Cathedral Suicide, October 1890

Edward Easton, thirty-eight-years-old, killed himself inside St Paul’s Cathedral by shooting himself one Sunday. He lived with his mother at No 12, Favart Road, Poole Park in Fulham and it was she that went to identify his body. He hadn’t been well recently, the doctor taking care of him told the family that he had suicidal tendencies. He shot himself twice while sat in a chair in the Cathedral, and death was immediate. His mother said he was a religious sort and had changed religion and now was a Secularist. He left his mother the following note explaining the situation:-

“Dear Mother- If I should die suddenly I offer you this memorandum to show that no individual- least of all yourself- is the cause of my death, but false Christianity- Your affectionate son, Edward”

And on a scrap of paper found on the corpse, was written the following:-

“My name is Edward Easton. Christianity has murdered me. The reason I try to commit suicide in a church, is to try and help to break up false Christianity”

3/ Paternoster Row, St Paul’s Cathedral, August 1864 (Body found)

A lamplighter was going about his business early one morning turning off the gas when he came across the body of a man hanging from the railings at the rear of the premises in Paternoster Row, which is occupied by the Religious Tract Society. He cut him down and then got help, but it was too late as the bloke was already dead. Police checked his pockets for any clue as to his identity but nothing was there but a few letters in Danish, which mentioned the war.

4/ Whispering Gallery Suicide, St Paul’s Cathedral, January 1878

A man calmly walked toward the entrance, paid his entry fee of sixpence and then sauntered up to the Whispering Gallery. He then plummeted from there to the stone flags below. He was rushed off to St Bartholemew’s Hospital but he was already dead. The only clue to his identity was the mark “Stephens” in his linen and police are currently making inquiries into the stranger.

5/ St Paul’s Cathedral, February 1896 (Dead Baby Found In St Paul’s)

A newly born baby boy was found dead in St Paul’s Cathedral. The infant was in a package wrapped in brown paper and was discovered when the assistant to the Cathedral, Alfred Larking, was walking down the south aisle when he spotted it on the steps of the reredos. He said that about forty people were milling about the area, where literally anybody could have left the child as the public was constantly in and out. It was wrapped in a blood-soaked towel and the cloth was of the type worn by a barrister or a verger. Cause of death was suffocation, but whether it was deliberate or accidental cannot be determined for definite.

6/ Whispering Gallery Suicide, St Paul’s Cathedral, November 1847

Imagine the scene- Thursday afternoon, 1-30 p.m., the Whispering Gallery in St Paul’s. In walks William Davison a solicitor from Bloomsbury Square. Friends have noticed a change in his behaviour recently but nothing to alarm them as to what was going to happen. Davison left Bloomsbury Square in the morning and then made his way to the Exchange, in order to do a bit of business. Then he goes to St Paul’s, pays the admission fee to see the Whispering Gallery. The attendant in charge of the Gallery, a bloke named Thompson, saw him climb over the railings and plummet down to the stone flags below killing himself instantly. The noise in the Whispering Gallery, echoed around, as he smashed into the floor with a dull thud and Davison had achieved his main aim.

7/ Whispering Gallery Suicide, St Paul’s Cathedral, March 1856

When I was writing and reading these, I thought,”Not another suicide in St Paul’s”. I wonder how many deaths there have been around this giant monolith. I think it’s that thought, that if I’m going to go out, I’ll go out with a bang and make it memorable. Get a few lines in the national papers and be remembered by a bloke on the internet 160 years later or maybe to be nearer to God, on consecrated ground. After all, suicides don’t go to heaven but if I did it in a church, I’d have to. This is Alexander Smart who jumped from the Whispering Gallery, a distance of a hundred feet plus, onto the nave below. He had waited until the clock struck twelve, then laughed hysterically three times and Thompson and Hutchins (vergers) made a dash to grab hold of him, then climbed the handrail and plunged over the edge. He was killed on the spot and the post-mortem revealed his appalling injuries; the head was smashed in, spine dislocated, both legs and one arm broken and the left shoulder fractured.

(In the paper it states that the height of the Gallery is 150 feet. Is it?)

8/ Three Tuns Suicide, Fleet Street, July 1857

Fleet Street is best known for being the centre of British journalism, but this is about a pub, just off the main street. Somewhere in the mass of houses, pubs, buildings etc.was the public-house of George Jones, who ran the Three Tuns, Great New Street, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street. He was unmarried and employed a potman and two barmaids and when they turned up for work one morning, they were banging on the door and getting no answer they became worried. A search was made and he was found in a water tank, hanging over it. The tank supplied the W.C.’s with water and was on the first floor of the building, so he did remarkably well to reach the thing in the first place.

9/ Thames Embankment, (Thames Suicide) December 1874

On Christmas Day at Ludgate Hill Station, cabman, Frederick Edwards, got a customer who asked him how much it was to Westminster Bridge. He quoted him one shilling and sixpence, so he agreed and hopped in. They arrived at Temple stairs and he told the cabby “This’ll do. I did not know it was so near”. He then toddled across to the Embankment, said “Goodnight” and jumped into the Thames river. A letter was sent before he did all this and the bizarre jottings read thus:-

“London- Christmas Eve.

My Dear Brother- This will be the last letter you will ever get from me. Had you sent my money when I wrote to you for it, I should not have done what I have done. Please to pay attention to my last remarks and my last requests. I have written a line to all my friends, which you will post as soon as you have them in your possession. My watch is for your eldest. My ring, cigar case, and silk handkerchief to my friend, and my other property. I have paid for everything up to 5-30. I wish my death to be advertised in the Suffolk and Norfolk papers in full. I have stated my wish elsewhere, so I thank you to carry out my request in full, and not to have it reported that you have not done so. I am in my full senses, so, therefore, the coroner and jury need not return a verdict of insanity, for I am not going to starve and beg to oblige and please you and yours. You have my money, and now you can do what you like, as I prefer death to starvation any time- Cornelius Osborne. Born 1848. Died December 24th, 1874  Aged 26 years 5 months and 24 days.

His brother, Jabez Osborne, said that Cornelius had inherited some money when the father died, but he spent it all, and Jabez kept giving him a cheque every now and then to help him out. A letter came to Jabez, asking him for more money, but he threw it in the fire. He lodged at Mr Poulton’s in 119, High Holborn, and told him about his plan to kill himself, but he thought he was kidding. He wasn’t!

Monument Suicides, London

IT IS 202 FEET HIGH, WITH 311 STEPS TO THE TOP, AND SIX PEOPLE JUMPED OFF THIS, BETWEEN 1788-1842. A TYPE OF WIRE MESH WAS PUT ROUND THE TOP PLATFORM TO STOP THE GLUT OF SUICIDES.

10/ September 1839

It had been nearly three decades since the last suicide at the Monument but on Wednesday 11th September, at a quarter past ten in the morning, Margaret Moyes dived off the top of it. The bloke who took the entry fees, Thomas Jenkins, took her sixpence. Moyes then asked if a gentleman and two ladies had been there and he replied “No”. She seemed surprised and asked if she could sit inside the railings at the base of the Monument and he agreed. She sat there with Jenkins for about twenty minutes then said she’d go up on her own as she was sick of waiting for her friends to turn up. She went up, then shortly after jumped off the platform. She was about twenty-five-years-old, fair complexion, well-dressed, and about five feet two inches tall. A post-mortem examination gave these as the following injuries- Fractured spinal column, blood emanating from the mouth, eyes and nostrils, left arm severed above the elbow (kept in place by sleeve). She bent a railing on impact below and just avoided the ornamental griffins on the base. A note was found in a pocket-book saying- You need not expect me to return home, for I have gone out with the determination to destroy myself”. The day after this Fish Hill was absolutely jam-packed with people wanting to see the place where Moyes landed.

11/ October 1839

This next one is seen as a copycat suicide and it being so close to Moyes’s self-destruction, it is too coincidental. A rather impressionable fifteen-year-old boy named Robert Donaldson Hawes, who worked as a porter in Gracechurch Street was seen by Jenkins, to clamber over the iron railings of the gallery at the top (as you can see). His frail little body was forty feet from the base and with blood and brain matter spread all over. He must have landed on his back, due to lack of markings to the face and he clutched a Bible in his hands.

12/ August 1842 (Final Suicide From The Monument)

Ever since the suicides in 1839, a guard had been put on the top to prevent such actions recurring again. Jenkins was still taking the money at the base and Nathaniel Fletcher was patrolling in the morning. A lass in her teens paid her money and went to the top. She walked around a couple of times taking in the magnificent views when Fletcher suddenly lost sight of her. He ran down the stairs to see if she’d come down but she had by now thrown herself off the column. Jenkins said he heard a loud crash similar to a carriage being upset but they found the young lady bleeding profusely from the ears and head. A witness said she used the flagstaff (you can see it in the picture) to lever herself over the railings. Her body smashed into the stone dragon on impact, North West corner about fifty feet from the base. She was identified as Jane Cooper, a seventeen-year-old domestic servant and this makes the sixth person to kill themselves here.

John Craddock, baker- 7th July, 1788: Lyon Levi, Jewish diamond merchant- 18th January, 1810: Leander, baker- 1810: Margaret Moyes, bakers daughter- 11th September, 1839: Robert Hawes, a 15-year-old boy- 18th October, 1839: Jane Cooper, 17 year old domestic servant- 19th August, 1842

Ludgate Hill, London

13/ Ludgate Hill Station Suicide, July 1867 (Above picture is the closest I had)

Henry Bowles aged thirty-eight was discovered in a closet at Ludgate Hill Station, supposedly he had committed suicide by poisoning himself with prussic acid. Why? Well, he was an accountant earning around £1 a week, plus board and lodging. He had been working for a Mr Bickley for the past year when his accounting books were checked, it was found that £40 was missing. When he was asked about the deficiency he admitted to it straight away but said it was only £20 that he side-lined for himself. Not long after this, probably knowing the consequences that were coming he was found at Ludgate Hill Station.

(Ludgate Hill Station was opened in 1865 and was closed in 1929)

14/ Ludgate Hill Station Suicide, January 1878

Another suicide in a closet at Ludgate Hill Station! The young lad’s name is Joseph Kirkley Galloway, only eighteen-years-old and it seems that he came from a good background, with no money worries and always seemed to be fairly chipper. He was whisked off to St Bartholomew’s Hospital and the bullet wound was examined. It was above the ear and it is thought that he may not pull through. His mother visited him and was at a loss as to why he would attempt suicide. (Did he die?)

15/ Ludgate Hill Station Suicide, April 1869

At two p.m. one Friday, a young chap walks into one of the W.C.’s at Ludgate Hill Station. Later on, the place was checked over as nobody had seen him, and lo and behold there he was lying on the floor, with blood oozing from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

On his person was found the receipt for the gun, at Messrs Reilly of Oxford Street, for £2 and 15 shillings, a hanky with the initials “W.B.” on it, a hotel bill from Stanley’s Hotel, Leamington Spa, and another from the Red Horse in Stratford-on-Avon. Other bits and bobs revealed a Crystal Palace season ticket with W.C.Bumstead, Stonely Villa, Clapham, on it and a couple of tenners, a huge amount in those days. His brother identified the corpse and said that he had been going around the country visiting places for his health. Two men tried to pass themselves off as relatives in order to claim the money found on him. When told to go to the police station, they legged it. Suicide due to ill-health probably.

16/ Newgate Prison Execution, December 1885 (Murdered at 3, Ammiel Terrace, High Street, Bromley-by-Bow

The mistake made by James Berry at Norwich Gaol on the 30th of November 1885, was when he attempted to hang Robert Goodale, but instead of hanging him, when he dropped through the trap-door his head was torn off his body. See also Norfolk section (No.45 )

 

17/ White Lion Street, Pentonville, July 1837 (Pierced on Railings)

At about eight a.m. at the front of a house in White Lion Street in Pentonville, a decorator named William Fry fell from a ladder while painting on the second storey. Nine times out of ten you’d survive a fall of twenty feet or so, but Fry landed directly on the spiked railings outside the residence. Four of them pierced his body and he was dangling there until witnesses to the horrific accident took him off them. He was taken to the hospital, but his chances of making it are virtually zero.

18/ Christ’s Hospital, May 1857 (Impaled on Spikes)

Three p.m. Saturday and the Blue Coat Boys of Christ’s Hospital, Newgate Street were playing sports, when a couple of them tried to scale a wall in the playground which is next to Giltspur Street. The first one went over and performed it perfectly, then the next lad only sixteen tried it and must have forgotten about the spiked railings on Mr Gilruth the baker’s property and he was impaled on them. In shock more than anything, they ran around like headless chickens for a few minutes and then went to get help. He was removed and surgeons from St Bartholemew’s tried to save the lad.

19/ Fenchurch Street Suicide, June 1862

George Hay, a clerk at a merchant’s in Mark Lane, killed himself in a singular manner in Fenchurch Street, London. He kneeled down on the kerb and carefully placed his head under the oncoming wheels of a fully laden charcoal waggon. His head was squashed to pieces and death was instantaneous.

20/ Newgate Prison Suicide, January 1852

An inquest was held on the suicide of Flannigan, who drowned himself at Newgate by putting his head in a bucket of water. This was due to him not receiving any friends or family as visitors, as they had all washed their hands of him and with this, his spirits had become lower and lower. Flannigan also liked a tipple and he hadn’t had a drink for a while, and delirium tremens had taken effect. The verdict was “Temporary Insanity”.

21/ Newgate Prison Execution, March 1899

22/ City Theatre Fatality, London April 1833

The inquest into the unfortunate death of 15-year-old Emma Teulon who was struck by a bottle about three weeks ago at the City Theatre. (I think it was on Milton Street, near Barbican Centre) She sustained a fractured skull and was rushed to St Bartholemew’s Hospital, but she died from erysipelas (bacterial infection, causes red patches on the skin). It was not certain whether it was deliberate or an accident and the lad who had the bottle was due to appear.

23/ Warwick Lane Restaurant Suicide, (Near St Paul’s Cathedral) November 1876

Richard Bath, a thirty-year-old gasfitter living at Millfield Place, Green Lanes, Stoke Newington, walked into a restaurant with his missus and ordered some lunch. Bath suddenly grabbed a knife from the table and slit his throat in front of his wife and other customers. So deep was the wound to his neck, that it was barely held on by a flap of skin. This was kind of a making-up dinner, as he had just come out of prison for three months for assaulting her, but death came within a few minutes.

24/ Cannon Street Station Fatality, August 1905

A lad named Beazley (Great name!), who worked at the Commercial Telegraph Bureau in Mincing Lane and took the letters to post at Cannon Street Station, was killed while he was posting the letters, he mounted a tender and when he realised it was being shunted, he leapt onto the line. He stumbled and fell under the wheels of a passing carriage. He was discovered lying on the rails, his head being terribly crushed.

25/ East India Avenue Assault, August 1899

26/ King William Street, February 1852

This street is near the Monument to the Great Fire of London and was the scene of a bizarre suicide attempt. A City policeman was patrolling the area around King William Street when he saw flames emanating from a man’s mouth, who was standing on the corner. The Frenchman had tried to commit suicide by putting an egg yolk with three ounces of gunpowder in his gob, then lighting a fuse and tried to blow his head off. He escaped major injury but received severe burns to his mouth and throat.

27/ Poultry, (Fire-Engine Fatality) September 1850

This is a road near the Bank of England. One morning a fire engine was rattling along Poultry and going towards Cornhill. When it was near the Mansion House the pole of the engine smacked a smartly-dressed young man by the name of Alexander Dupree Dunning, and if that wasn’t bad enough a wheel passed over his neck, then another over his head. Then the horses were stopped and a fireman went to see if the young man was badly hurt. There was blood everywhere and he was taken immediately to Guy’s Hospital. Unfortunately, the injuries were too bad and he died. A verdict of “Accidental death.”

28/ Newgate Suicide, June 1833

Edward Foley aged thirteen was a career criminal even at this young age. Nowadays he’d be put in a Young Offenders Institution. He had just been sentenced to seven years transportation to Australia (poor bugger!) for the crime of highway robbery. Sort of a mini Dick Turpin. He was put in the care of Mr Lloyd, schoolmaster, and had become a stubborn little fella. Lloyd found out that he was head of a conspiracy among the other lads who intended to grab him and give him a good kicking. Foley was put in solitary, but when they went to get him out he was found hanging by his neckerchief to a candlestick to a wall. He was in a kneeling position, as the fixture was only three feet from the floor. “Felo de Se” was the verdict.

29/ Newgate Prison Execution, January 1899

30/ St Paul’s Station, Blackfriars, (Bodies in Box) January 1907

The decaying bodies of two children were discovered inside a trunk at St Paul’s Station in Blackfriars. This is not an unusual crime in Victorian Britain. The metal box had been at the Lost Property Office for about eighteen months and there was a horrible stench coming from it, so finally they opened it up. There were a few letters in the box as well, but police are making inquiries.

31/ St Bartholemews Hospital Suicide, August 1844

Nineteen-year-old Thomas Reidy committed suicide by hanging himself. He had been showing signs recently that he was losing it. Friends thought it was due to his studying too hard for his engineer’s position, but he was also ultra-religious, saying that “God ordained him to die, and die he should”. The nurse, Ann Harris, said he often talked of suicide and told her “murder and suicide were always uppermost in my mind”. Talk like this got him put in St Bart’s in the first place and when he was found hanging to a window-bar, it was no surprise to anyone.

32/ Newgate Execution, April 1892

33/ Mansion House Station, (Child in Package)August 1888

The train from Broad Street via Willesden Junction trundled into Mansion House Station at 9-34 p.m. Police had been told that staff had discovered a body of a baby boy in the third-class carriage, wrapped in paper and old rags. A passenger found it when he was searching around the carriage looking for the source of an awful smell. He looked under the seats and there was the decomposed child. (Was it ever identified?)

34/ Aldgate Station, (Child in Package) December 1877

Another body of a murdered child found on London’s railways. This one was found by a porter at Aldgate Station on a Sunday night when he entered a third-class carriage and found a package left on the seat. It was opened up and a newly-born female wrapped up in some brown paper and an old towel. Post-mortem examinations revealed that the child had been physically abused. Police have questioned passengers at various stations along the line as to whether they had seen anyone with such a parcel, but have discovered nobody that fits the bill.

35/ Houndsditch Murder, September 1899

36/ Blackfriars Station, (Human Body Parts) July 1886

Portions of a human body were discovered on the District Railway when an employee at Blackfriars Station found an arm, a leg and a foot on the tracks. Police were called and are investigating the situation. They were carefully wrapped in a towel and the main theory is that they were thrown from a passing train.

37/ Cannon Street Station Suicide, December 1887

A gentleman committed suicide at Cannon Street Station by shooting himself. Mr Gideon Turnbull aged thirty-four of Santa Croix, Surbiton Hill, who was a wine-merchant by trade, had been low in spirits for the past week a half. He had invested some money in some business which turned out to be a complete waste of time. Now financially he was ruined and all his cash had been effectively flushed down the bog, so there was no other answer, but to kill himself.

38/ Cannon Street Station Suicide, April 1868

Very similar to the other Cannon Street suicide. This was a smartly-dressed man in his forties blew his brains out with a handgun. He went into a W.C. and locked the door. An employee noticed that he hadn’t come out for a while and tried to open the closet door. He got other staff to help him break it open and he found deceased, with the top of his head shot off by the old pistol. He had placed the muzzle in his mouth and pointed it upwards, causing the injury mentioned. He was identified as William Clark who worked in the Custom House offices.

39/ St Bartholemew’s Hospital, (Kicked to Death) August 1892

 

40/ Smithfield Suicide, July 1862 (Lovesick Pensioner)

William Bailey aged sixty-three was an inmate of the West London Union and had been for the last eighteen months. He used to be well off and was a member of a respectable family, but Lady Luck hadn’t sprinkled her glitter on this old fella for quite a while. One good thing to come his way were the attentions of a much younger woman. She was an Infirmary nurse whose husband was a soldier, away on active duty on foreign soil and they could only meet fleetingly in the storeroom for a quick kiss and cuddle. They had a petty argument one day and it’s thought that this led to him hanging himself from a beam, by a couple of leather straps. He’d had a tipple beforehand which made him a bit moody and sullen. When the young nurse was questioned about the argument she said that it was because a friend of his had passed away and they hadn’t bickered in any way. (I wonder why he did kill himself?)

41/ Apothecaries Hall Explosion, June 1842 (Blackfriars Lane, near St Paul’s Cathedral)

An appalling accident caused the demise of a well-liked servant of the Apothecaries Company. Mr Hennell, who was the chemical operator of the company was fulminating mercury for percussion caps which were to be used in the East Indies. Three reports were heard then a much louder one, which caused the foundations to shake. Mr Hennell’s body or what was left of it, had his right arm torn off by the explosion and the right side of his face was missing, minus the top of his head. The rib-cage was blown open revealing his internal organs and heart. Pieces of him picked up by workmen from the roofs of adjoining houses.

42/ Newgate Prison Execution, July 1885

43/ Liverpool Street Station, (Child Remains) July 1896

Another story of how somebody had put a dead child in a box and left it on a train. I bet you that 90% of train stations had a story similar to this one. Liverpool Street Station lost property had a package deposited there which was a nicely wrapped parcel, found in 2nd Class on the Norwich express. The usual thing, that a funny smell was coming from it, so police were informed. When opened, it contained the body of a child who had been suffocated with a piece of wadding in its throat, then had its skull smashed in with some sort of blunt instrument. It was classed as a case of child murder and City police did everything they could to find the perpetrator of the crime, but apart from the Norwich connection, they had very little to go on.

44/ Liverpool Street Station Suicide, September 1888

This time it was an act of suicide at the famous train station. At four p.m. one afternoon, a nicely dressed woman about thirty odd, was sat in the waiting-room at Liverpool Street Station when she got up and told the bloke next to her that she poisoned herself. She then screamed and dropped down on the floor. A railway company’s doctor tried to revive her but she died soon after. Police took the body to the mortuary at Golden Lane and found some cash, plus the following letter with no address on it:

“Dear Tom- I could not see the things taken from my house. What I said this morning is true. Pray to God for me, your distressed wife. I hope God will forgive me and help you. I cannot stand it any longer; it is too much for me. Goodbye. Farewell-Lucy”

An address “Mrs Groves, Halley Road, Enfield Lock” was found on a bit of paper, but not the same writing as on the letter. The Jane Doe has not yet been identified.

45/ Henry the Eighth’s Chapel Suicide, August 1838

Around the area of St Bartholemew’s Hospital, there was quite a buzz when a suicide was found in the chapel of Henry the Eighth. It was the sexton, Mr Thomas Thurrel, who had been missing for several days previous to his being found. He had the keys to the chapel which adjoins St Bart’s, and someone wanted to go into the chapel but no answer came from his house. The chapel doors were pried open and Thurrel was found hanging from a beam in the belfry. He was starting to decay, so it was deduced that he’d been there a couple of days, but as to a reason why he did this is still unknown. (Can I visit Chapel?)

46/ Fleet Street Suicide, July 1889

47/ Barbican Suicide, August 1871

A fifty-year-old police sergeant, Robert Bridle, killed himself in a singular manner in his garden shed near Barbican. He had a wife and three kids and was put on the pension list a few years ago. Problem was that he was drinking very heavily and the arguments with his wife were more and more frequent. At tea-time, one day he went to his garden shed for a bit of me-time and ten minutes later there was a tremendous explosion, with pieces of wood from his shed lying all around the garden. Bridle was laid on his back and badly burned, but he was shovelled into a cab and taken to the hospital. While in the cab he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a razor and then slit his throat from ear to ear. Two young men who were accompanying him to hospital wrestled the razor from him, but amazingly he brought out another one and finished the job.

48/ “Times” Office, Blackfriars, July 1868 (Human Remains)

While some alterations were being made at the Times office in Blackfriars, there was a lot of digging going on and it was then, that a workman found a human skull. More digging revealed two more skulls plus the bones from three bodies. They had been buried for some considerable time but were in remarkable condition. One is of a young man, teeth still intact, with the others being slightly broken. It was believed to be the site of a monastery in Blackfriars and the skeletons are possibly those of inmates from centuries ago when it was then a quiet resting place.

49/ Harcourt Buildings, Inner Temple, January 1885

 

50/ Bishopsgate Street Station Suicide, September 1881

This suicide left a critical clue on his ticket. A train pulls into Bishopsgate Street Station at 1-12 p.m.when a gentleman went up to the booking office and got a third-class ticket to Bethnal Green Junction, then he quickly scribbled some words on it. He then climbed the stairs just as the train was coming into the station, then he jumped onto the ballast and fell over the rails. The driver tried to slam on the brakes but he ran over him, decapitating the man and leaving his head several metres from the trunk of his body. The ticket in his pocket was checked over and all it said was “Deceived you yet”. The man’s name is unknown, but he was about thirty-five-years-old, dark complexion, long dark hair and clean shaven. Black coat, tweed trousers, black hat and boots and personal possessions were a key, two files, corkscrew, some change and another smaller key. Go figure!

51/ St Mary Axe Suicide, October 1858

St Mary Axe may ring a bell with some of you because that is the address of the Gherkin. Miss Leigh Bunyon aged forty-two was discovered in a vapour bath in St Mary Axe, under some strange circumstances. She entered the baths and stayed in there for an hour and a half, which is not an unusual length of time to spend in there. An attendant heard the sound of running water and it was continuous so they went to see if she was OK. Miss Bunyon was floating in the bath, dead as a door-nail. A doctor surmised that she had poisoned herself and lo and behold, they found a bottle of sulphuric acid in the bathroom. Judging by the footprints and other clues, she had had a bath first, then got out, hence the wet footmarks on the steps, swallowed the acid, then racked with violent pains and spasms as the acid ate her insides away, she got back in the bath and turned the tap on.

52/ Woolpack Hotel Murder/Suicide, Wood Street, December 1900

A publican’s wife flirting a bit too much with the customers was the final straw for the husband and it ended up costing her, her life. Police went to the Woolpack Hotel in Wood Street and found two bodies on the premises. One was the good-looking wife Mrs North and the other was her husband, Mr William James North. He was stone-cold sober all the time, unusual for a Victorian publican, but she made up for the two of them as she was rat-arsed most of the time. Being so attractive she liked to flirt with the male customers, but the husband had had years of this and finally, he flipped. They were found in the cellar, both had been shot and all the chambers were empty, the majority of bullets were in her body. They had a couple of kids aged three and five, but friends were looking after them while the two sorted out their private life. They were going to get a divorce and they tried to give it another go, but this was the end result. (Between St Paul’s and the Barbican)

53/ Union Street, Aldgate, July 1895 (Highway Robbery)

54/  St Bartholemew’s Hospital Suicide,  July 1868

Thirty-year-old John Bryant was an entertainer in the music-halls and he was a heavy drinker. He also got sunstroke while he was in India, which really doesn’t help the situation. But what he did next really is not the action of a sane man. He was admitted on Thursday morning and put into bed near a window. The nurse went to get his medicine when there was an almighty crash and on returning to the ward, found that Mr Bryant had sprung through the window, a fallen a distance of thirty-five feet. He suffered terrible injuries and did not live long. It was thought to be delirium tremens and the effects thereof, but the doctor explained that he was only there to rest and recuperate.

55/ St Michaels Church Murder/Suicide, Aldermanbury, (Near St Paul’s)

Yet another church suicide accompanied by a murder, but this one cannot be visited as it was demolished in 1900. The perpetrator of this crime was the grave-digger named Holden. St Michael’s had been undergoing repairs and Holden and his missus, the sextoness, had entered the church at 6-30 a.m. to give it a good clean. At 7-15 the daughter went to tell them breakfast was ready and found her mother lying on the floor with her throat slashed and her father on top of her, with his throat cut and blood oozing from the pair of them. They argued at regular intervals, mainly about how much he was drinking and there was an age gap between them, he was seventy and she was fifty-odd.

56/ Farringdon Street, Druid’s Hall Suicide, September 1849

James Powell, a waiter at the Druid’s Hall in Farringdon Street, killed himself in an extraordinary fashion at his place of work. He was so down in the dumps and morose that Mrs Powell asked Mr Taylor, a hatter, who owned the shop under Druid’s Hall, to go and have a word with him. Taylor walked into the room and saw Powell staring out of the window. He asked him what was wrong, then he turned around and looked him full in the face. Taylor put his hand on his shoulder, then Powell whipped out a pistol and shot himself in the chest. Inquiries by police find that he pawned a coat then bought the pistol; also that, rather comically, he had lost the sight in one of his eyes when the cork of a ginger beer bottle impacted his eyeball while opening it.

57/ Little Swan Alley, near London Wall, September 1856 (Five dead as Houses Collapse)

Three houses in a poor state of repair in Little Swan Alley, off Bell Alley in Coleman Street, simply collapsed in the middle of the night, while everyone was asleep in bed causing five people to lose to lose their lives. P.C.Hewitt was patrolling the area when he heard an enormous crash, then dust and debris were strewn about. People were clambering out with cuts and bruises and broken limbs, but five never made it. A man named Palmer, his three children and a child of a lodger were killed. The building was three stories high, but now was a pile of rubble.

58/ Cannon Street Murder, June 1866

59/ Messrs Bevington, Cannon Street, (Murder) April 1866

This is one of my favourites, again because it remains unsolved and the potential murder weapon and a possible man dressed as a woman. Sarah Millsom, a middle-aged woman, worked for Messrs Bevington in Cannon Street in the City. The next bit I never quite worked out why she on the property that late at night- Did she live on the premises or was she just working late? Anyway, she was there with the cook, Elizabeth Lowes and the doorbell rang so she went downstairs to answer it. After a while, the cook got worried and ventured down to see if all was well. Millsom was lying dead on the floor, with massive blunt force trauma to the head. The door was shut tight and the lights were out, and Millsom’s shoes were put on the table with no visible signs of any blood on them. It was reported that one of Bevington’s crowbars was missing also, but the weirdest thing about this was when Lowes went outside to get assistance and she asked an old woman if she could help. She replied “No!” and then sped off. Could it have been a man dressed as a woman? Nothing was stolen so it wasn’t a robbery, and to this day this murder remains unsolved and is one of the freakier ones of London.

60/ St Ethelburga Church Suicide, Bishopsgate Street,  August 1891

This little church is surrounded by massive structures all around it but still exists. A man managed to get hold of the keys to St Ethelburga at about five p.m. but hadn’t come back at eleven o’clock, so his daughter-in-law went to see the police. They forced entry to the church and discovered him hanging by a bell-rope in the porchway. The man was Frederick Marsh aged sixty-six and he was a verger at the church. His daughter-in-law, Mary Ann, identified him as her father-in-law. She last saw him the day before and he seemed quite chipper, but his wife died in October and he seemed to dwell on her death.

60/ Aldgate Fatal Accident, June 1879

A shoemaker by the name of Bell, who lived at 4, Little Somerset Street, Mansell Street, Aldgate, was going down the cellar stairs when he tripped over something. He examined the large bundle and discovered that it was a dead woman. She was pronounced dead by the doctor, then whisked off to the mortuary. Little Somerset Street is a tiny side street off Mansell Street and is near to the Aldgate slaughterhouses. Investigations found out she was Mary Fitzgerald and had gone to see one of Mr Bell’s lodger’s. This is to be deemed an accident and is thought that she went to buy her spuds one night and has slipped and fallen into the cellar, then remained unconscious for some time.

61/ Minories, (Policeman Fatality) March 1885

62/ Minories Fatal Accident,  November 1876

 

63/  Aldersgate St. Station Suicide,  September 1870  (Aldersgate St. Station is now the Barbican Station)

 

64/  Barclays Bank Fatality, George Yard,  July 1870.  (George Yard still cobbled, not far from Bank of England)

65/  Bishopsgate Fatal Fire (Four Killed)  September 1870. (Off Liverpool Street. No.30 next to Arcade)

66/ Fatal Explosion on a Steamer,  August 1870.  (Fresh Wharf next to London Bridge, where St Magnus Building is now. North Side)

67/ Mystery Death at Whitefriars St,  December 1870

68/ Death from Cold, Smithfield Market,  December 1870.

On Saturday Mr Richards held an inquest at the Earl of Aberdeen Tavern, Old Ford Road, touching the death of Mr Samuel Gerrish, aged thirty-seven. The deceased was a master butcher carrying on business at 42, Roman Road, Old Ford Road, and at 3 o’clock on Thursday morning he set out in a Hansom cab for the purpose of purchasing a large quantity of meat at Smithfield Market. While in the cab the cold acted upon a diseased heart. The unfortunate man fell back dead in the cab. The driver of the vehicle returned to the dead man’s home. The jury, after hearing the medical evidence, returned a verdict of “Death from excessive cold”.

69/ Body in the Thames,  November 1870

Yesterday afternoon Mr Payne held an inquest at Allhallows School-room, Seething Lane, City, touching the death of a man whose name is unknown, and aged about thirty. It appeared from the evidence that on Friday last the deceased was found drowned in the Thames, off the Custom House Quay. He had been dead only about ten hours, and in his right hand was found a short pipe. Thames P.C. Scott, No.83, said he believed the deceased had fallen into the river accidentally during the heavy fog of Thursday night. The man was a labourer employed on the riverside, and he had no doubt during the fog mistaken his way, and, while trying to get on board a barge, slipped and fell into the water. Jury’s verdict – ” Accidentally drowned during the fog”.

70/ Omnibus Fatality, November 1870

71/ Shots Fired in the Bank of England,  November 1903.  (Attempted Murder of the Secretary)

Monday, February 22nd, 1904  (Detective-Inspector Retires)

72/ Suicide in Church Passage, City of London.  November 1903.

73/ Suicide in Great Winchester Street, October 1903.

74/ U.S. Citizen’s Suicide in London,  November 1903.  (Suicide note was written at the Hotel Cecil)

75/ Fatal Fire Kills Seven, Duke’s Head Passage, Ivy Lane.  March 1904.

76/ “Sensational feat” Causes Death, March 1904.

Dr Waldo held an inquest yesterday at the City Coroner’s Court on the body of Rowland Tomsitt. Tomsitt was employed by Messrs Stapley and Smith, warehouseman, of Fore Street, E.C. and was a member of the firm’s private fire brigade. A month ago he took part in a tournament organized by the London Private Fire Brigades Association and performed the “sensational” feat of the programme. This consisted in leaping from a burning building with a boy into a sheet stretched below. He then sprained one of his feet. The injury being more severe than was anticipated, he was admitted to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he died from blood poisoning set up by the accident. A verdict of “Death by misadventure” was returned.

77/ Clerk Attacks Employer with an Axe,  January 5th, 1904.

Wednesday, January 6th, 1904.

Thomas Schutz, the clerk lately employed by the Manica Copper Development Company, Cannon Street, who on Monday morning attacked the secretary of the company, Mr W.E.Lane, with a hatchet, gave himself up to City Police at the Cloak Lane Police Station about 8 o’clock last night. Inquiries made at Guy’s Hospital at 11 p.m. last night, showed that Mr Lane was making as favourable progress as could be expected. (In February 1904, the Brixton Gaol Medical Officer considered Schutz to be insane.

78/ Omnibus Fatality on Moorgate Street, City.  December 1906.

79/  Danish Naval Lieutenant Found Dead, Temple.   March 1907

80/  Death at Moorgate Street Station.  October 1880

81/  Fatal Accident at Holborn Circus.   November 1880

An inquiry was held at St Bartholomew’s Hospital as to the death of William Curtice, aged seventeen, of 22, Little Sutton Street, Clerkenwell. He was employed by Messrs. Carter, Paterson and Co., carriers, of Goswell Street, and on Thursday had been collecting parcels from Messrs Meekings warehouse, Hatton Garden. The van was crossing Holborn Circus at walking pace, when the deceased, who was on top of the vehicle in the front part, missed his footing and fell on the road on his head. Before the driver had become aware of what had happened, the fore wheel of the vehicle passed over the chest of the deceased. He was rushed to the hospital, where he died. The house surgeon, having given evidence, the jury returned a verdict of “Accidental death”.

82/  Omnibus Fatality on Princes Street.  October 1880

Another inquest was held at St Bart’s, on the body of Thomas Edscourt, aged fifty-one, who lived at Virgil Street, Circus Road. Deceased, on the afternoon of the 1st of October, was crossing Prince’s Street, Moorgate Street, opposite Grocer’s Hall, when an omnibus driver shouted at him to get out of the way. The deceased got clear of the horses, but the driver who had yelled at him seemed to frighten him, and, stepping backwards, he came against one of the horses, and was knocked down. The fore wheel passed over the deceased, and he was dragged, along several yards. He was taken to a hospital, where he died on the 19th, from injuries received, seventeen of his ribs having been fractured. A verdict of “Accidental death” was returned.

83/  Man Squashed Between Train and a Girder, Ludgate Hill Station.   December 1880

1/ Newton Hall, Chester,  March 1879 (Butler Suicide)

27-year-old butler to Mrs Peace of Newton Hall, William Smith, got drunk and tied a piece of string around the trigger, placed his foot in the loop and fired, distributing his face and brain over the walls of the room. Jury’s verdict was “Temporary Insanity”.

2/ Chester Castle (Soldier Suicide)  June 1909

Colour sergeant Arthur Longley aged thirty-seven placed the barrel of a rifle in his mouth with a piece of wire attached to the trigger and killed himself. He was a member of the Cheshire Regiment and was due to leave the Castle the day before. He was in the armoury at the time of death. Longley also leaves a wife and kids behind and also illness was rife in the family with two kids in isolation hospital. Reason for death?

3/ Grosvenor Hotel Suicide, Chester,  June 1897

28-year-old travelling cement salesman from Liverpool, Reginald Dale, booked into the Grosvenor Hotel and stayed there for a week or so. One of the hotel staff entered his room and found him slumped unconscious. A doctor was swiftly found and managed to revive the fellow. He told the doctor that he’d taken Condy’s Fluid but he found no stains around the mouth that fluid would produce.The doctor doubted his word and sifted around for other evidence of poison and he found a bottle that smelled of chloral (trichloralethanal) The patient took a turn for the worse and died soon after. His boss, Algernon J. Pilkington, stated that he had mortgage problems and was in financial difficulties. “Suicide whilst temporarily insane” was the verdict.

4/ Grosvenor Hotel, Chester, March 1886 (Still there!)

At around eight a.m. one morning, a commercial traveller found a fellow commercial, Mr Frederick Charles Hill, lying on the bedroom floor at the Grosvenor, covered in blood. He had arrived at ten p.m. the previous night, then went to bed an hour later, but he seemed quite calm. He was found naked with razor marks on his arms and a pocket-book, zinc ointment, a prescription, two bottles of medicine, which contained aqua morphia & bromide of potash, which is taken for nervous conditions. The notebook contained the following sentence;-“Goodbye. Love to all. Charley don’t fret. Bank right.”  The verdict was “Suicide while temporarily insane”

5/ Macclesfield Murder, February 1881

6/ Smallwood near Sandbach, 1883 (Double Murder) I missed the month when I cut out from the paper.

 

7/ Chester Castle, January 1903 (Soldier’s Suicide)

 

8/ Chester Lunatic Asylum, (Lillie Langtry’s Husband Dead) October 1897

This is the death of Edward Langtry, who was the husband of the famous actress of the day. Lillie Langtry who is most infamous for having an affair with the Prince of Wales, who went on to become Edward VII. Her husband was found at Crewe Station in a dazed state and who later died of his injuries.

 

9/ Warrington Cemetery, July 1910 (Died on Daughter’s Grave)

Louisa Cain, the wife of William Cain was found at Warrington Cemetery on her daughter’s grave, having swallowed a quantity of carbolic acid with the bottle being near the body. Her short note expresses her mood exactly:   “Dear Louie- I am coming to you at last”.

10/ Lymm, February 1885 (Lymm Giantess)

11/ Wybunbury Murder/Suicide, near Nantwich, July 1835

A terrible event took place in Wybunbury when Thomas Bagguley, who works for Mr Davison (Steward to Sir John Delves Broughton) called upon Mr Davison’s servant girl. Her name was Malpas and she was only sixteen, but his plan was to lure her out and have his way, so he told her that her mother was dying! Malpas ran to see her and Bagguley followed her across the fields where he caught up with her and tried to rape her. She kicked and struggled so he strangled her and left the body in the field. Realising what he’d done he fled back to Mr Davison’s outbuildings and hung himself. The inquest came up the verdict of “Wilful Murder” and “Felo de Se”. His body was buried at the entrance to Wybunbury churchyard at midnight, with a large number of locals to watch the ceremony. Bagguley also left a wife and kids.

12/ Wincham Hall Fatality, February 1885

13/ Hartford near Northwich, May 1908 (Double Murder/Suicide)

Mrs Charles Gerrard, who lived in a cottage in Hartford, sent three her children to school on Monday morning as usual. When they returned in the afternoon the door was locked and they couldn’t get in. The door was prized open and Mrs Gerrard lay on the floor with her throat cut and her two little girls aged 2 and 4, were found in a bathtub, both had been drowned by their mother.

14/ Rowton (Lady Disappears) February 1st, 1899

February 4th, 1899

February 6th, 1899 (What Happened Here?)

15/ Buglawton, near Congleton September 1835

A 10-year-old boy named Slater worked for Mr Haynes, a silk manufacturer of Buglawton, had a fatal accident at work. He was in the engine-house when somehow his neckerchief became entangled by one of the engine shafts, and despite his screams for help, it was over all too quickly and his head was severed from his body. “Accidental Death” was the verdict.

16/ Stapeley near Nantwich, (Starved to Death) January 1899

17/ Crewe Station Suicide, July 1869

A man dressed in a black suit, with a dark moustache and beard, was seen at Crewe Station observing the comings and goings of the trains while pacing up and down the platform. The 12-45 from Liverpool was entering the station when he suddenly threw himself in front of it and was instantly killed. The gentleman had been staying at the hotel next to the station, and when they searched his room it turned out he’d got rid of all evidence that would identify him.

18/ Runcorn, February 1899

19/ Buglawton Matricide, May 1885

20/ River Dee, Chester, July 1885

21/ Badeley Vicarage, June 1886 (Vicars Son’s Suicide)

The son of the vicar the Reverend J.Wilkinson Edwards, was a young man of twenty-one, who was employed in an office in Liverpool, went back home to Badeley. He complained to his father that he was over-worked and tired and could he stay with him for a while. He said he could, but one night he left the vicarage to go for a walk and he never returned. His father went out to look for him and saw his son in the grounds with a rifle next to him. He’d put the barrel in his mouth and fired and death was instantaneous. The verdict was “Suicide while of unsound mind”.

22/ Tattenhall near Chester, May 1899 (Lightning Deaths)

23/ Northwich Drownings, July 1885

24/ Warrington Fair Death, July 1885

25/ Alsager Hall Suicide, September 1879

The daughter of the owner of Alsager Hall, Mr Bailey, committed suicide by drowning herself in a pool near to the Hall. What caused her to do this is unknown. She was a bridesmaid at her sister’s wedding last week and she was due to be married soon as well. (Is Hall still there?)

26/ Great Budworth, January 1885

27/ Lymm Drownings, July 1885

 

28/ Chelford Railway Station Suicide, February 1899

29/ Wilmslow, September 1844 (Death by Corset?)

One Sunday morning at Wilmslow church as the service was due to begin Jane Goodwin, aged twenty-two sat down near the pulpit. Soon after she felt unwell and was taken out the church to the sexton’s house which was nearby. It was all in vain as Goodwin was dead before they got there. The cause of her death was because her corset was too tight!

30/ River Dane/Northwich, March 1899 (Suicide)

31/ Winsford, May 1899 (Fatal Accident)

32/ Neston, December 1903

Two burly chaps started arguing about politics, this escalated into a full-blown fight. Henry Pritchard, aged 28, and Ernest Grundy aged twenty-five punched each other and Pritchard ended up with a black eye. They went their separate ways but a few days later the eye had to have medical attention. An operation was performed but Pritchard died when he fell unconscious. Grundy, on hearing of the death of Pritchard, thought he’d be tried for manslaughter so he slit his throat.

33/ Crewe, (Mystery Death) January 1885

34/ Betley Mere near Crewe, (Two Drowned) January 1885

35/ Chester Castle Suicide, May 1858

The strange thing about this story is that the young lad of twelve was a prisoner at the Castle. Thomas Little of Seacombe, who was one of thirteen in the family, was told off by his father for some tiny misdemeanour and stayed out till the next day. When he did come back he was arrested by police for stealing three bottles of wine and a writing desk. The guilty verdict was passed and he got three weeks in Chester Castle for his troubles. While in prison he was in deep distress and cried incessantly and begged to be let out. Next morning he had a seizure (Epilepsy?) which he used to have anyway and again begged prison staff to free him. At dinner time he ate his bread and water then later was visited by the deputy-governor but had apparently calmed down. Staff left him alone thinking he was OK, but when an officer turned up at six o’clock with his tea, they found him hanging from a hook on the wall. The lad had tied his handkerchief to it and popped his head through the home-made noose. The staff had left a slate, on which he’d written about how he missed his mother urging them to visit as soon as possible and telling his siblings to be good to their parents. His last words were: “Take me home, and make me a coffin”.

36/ Nantwich Shooting, February 13th, 1899

Nantwich Shooting, February 17th, 1899

Nantwich Shooting, March 8th, 1899 ( Chester Winter Assizes )

37/ Winsford, (Poacher Deaths) October 1858

A fatal accident happened to a couple of poachers on the London and North Western Railway near Winsford. They were in a gang of a dozen or so, armed with nets, traps and rifles. On their way back they tried to get across the line before the six o’clock coal train and two of them didn’t quite make it. One of them was Foster, who had a leg cut off and an arm dislocated while being knocked down. He died of his injuries later on. The other, Bennion, a widower with kids was hit with the full force of the train and his nose was the only part of his upper body not mutilated by the impact.

38/ Lawton Lake near Alsager, January 1885

One afternoon Arthur Thompson, a young married man, while skating on the ice at Lawton Lake near Alsager, broke through the ice and disappeared. The water was sixteen feet deep and his body was not recovered for about two hours.

39/ Warrington, April 1885

One Saturday afternoon a boy of five years of age, son of Mr Stephen Johns on, a herbalist of Napier Street in Warrington, fell into a ditch and was drowned before assistance arrived.

40/ Chester Murder, February 1885

 

Chester, March 1885 (See Above)

41/ Shropshire Union Canal Fatality, September 1885

A shocking affair has occurred on the Shropshire Union Canal. Two boats were passing between Chester and Ellesmere Port, when a boy named Owen Owen(?), son of one of the boatmen, put his head out of the cabin just as another boat approached. The latter struck him full on the forehead smashing his skull and causing instant death.

42/ Shropshire Union Canal, November 1885

The body of a well-dressed young man, about twenty-three years old has been found in the Shropshire Union Canal at Beeston. He was fair and had a light moustache. Not the slightest clue to identification has been obtained.

43/ Widnes, May 1899 (Railway Fatality)

About two o’clock yesterday afternoon a fatal accident occurred at Widnes to a woman named Mary Glynn of Water Street. She was crossing the railway line on the canal bank, Widnes when she was run over by an engine. Her head, arms and legs were cut off. The driver tried to stop before reaching her but failed.

44/ Winsford, (Pneumonia Deaths) December 1885

45/ Capesthorne near Macclesfield, (Cycling Fatality) June 1899

46/ Hamer Green near Nantwich, September 1910 (Summerhouse Mystery)

At a farm at Hamer Green near Nantwich, the sound of gunshots alerted Mr Edwards, a farmer, that something was amiss. A search soon discovered that his daughter, Miss Emma Edwards, who was twenty-six, had been shot in the summerhouse. The scene led them to think it was self-inflicted because the muzzle was found on her lap pointing towards her chest. She lingered a while then died a few hours later.

47/ Sutton Drowning,  January 1885

Edward William Clemo, son of Peter Clemo, a Warrington engine driver, was drowned in a pit at Sutton. The boy was visiting his grandfather, who warned him not to venture on the ice. As he was absent from the house longer than usual a search was made. Near a hole in the centre of the ice on the pit, the boy’s cap was found and afterwards, his body was recovered from the water.

48/ Shropshire Union Canal Murder, December 1889

49/ Bridgewater Canal Drowning, Runcorn, June 1899

50/ Bulls Head Inn Suicide, Chester, April 1861

An old gentleman killed himself at the Bulls Head Inn, Chester, by shooting himself in the mouth. He arrived in Chester on the two o’clock train from Birkenhead and called at the inn for a swift drink. He ordered a drink went into the yard, then the shot was heard. Landlord and patrons rushed to the yard and found him in a leaning position with blood trickling from his ears and chin. A doctor came from nearby but pronounced him dead.

In his pocket was a letter addressed to “Mr J.Darnell, Mrs Amos, Prospect Vale, Fairfield, Liverpool or Tax Office, Custom House, Liverpool”. He also had an umbrella with an inscription on the handle which was identical to the address mentioned.

51/ Plumbley Station Fatality, June 1899

52/ River Dee, Chester, May 1885

53/ Wybunbury near Nantwich, June 1894 (Strangled on a Swing)

A sixteen-month-old child, son of a florist named Aulbury, fell asleep on a swing rope which was hanging from a tree in their garden. About ten minutes later the child was found strangled due to it falling off the swing and the rope becoming entangled around its neck.

54/ Macclesfield Abortion, March 1899

55/  Chester Workhouse Brutality, December 1885

 56/ Weston Point near Runcorn, April 1894

The body of an unknown boy was found in the Manchester Ship Canal at Weston Point by the harbour-master William Hough when he saw him floating on the surface. There wasn’t a lot of flesh on the corpse and judging by the look of it, had been in the water at least 3 months. Only the skull was left, the hands were cut off, and the legs cut off below the knees. The coroner found out he was around eight to twelve years of age, had a jacket on, vest, trousers in tweed, grey socks and brand new boots, with a merino jersey on as well. He lies at the Weaver Hotel awaiting identification.

57/ Manchester Ship Canal, Runcorn, January 1896

The captain of a steam tug, the “Wigan”, named Harry Smitham, went to look over the stern of the boat when he fell over the side. He then got caught in the propeller and drowned.

58/ Weston Point Fatality, February 1899

A woman named Mrs Leach was crossing the railway line which connects the Weston stone quarries with the Ship Canal when she was knocked down by some passing waggons and was killed instantly.

59/ Pickmere, Northwich, June 1899

60/ Congleton Fatal Accident, December 1900

61/ Northgate Suicide, Chester, March 1899

62/ Between Crewe and Sandbach, (Holmes Chapel) November 1903

The body of a woman dressed as a nurse was found on the London and North Western Railway line in between Sandbach and Crewe. She was taken to the railway’s hospital at Crewe and identified as Nurse Hodkinson of Uttoxeter, and she had worked out her suicide for quite a while. She threw herself from the Crewe to Manchester train, and her suicide note was found in her pocket. Written while at the Euston Hotel in London, she wrote the following:-

“Sir-Just a line to let you know I am taking my own life. I am not mad, only strange at times, but that is nothing, so you must do what you like to dispose of my body. Be as kind as you can with my mother and relatives. I have sent them all word, and I hope they will all soon forget me, but when you are ill and no money you don’t like to sponge on your people or relations, although they have all been so kind in coming forward to help me in my –. But I cannot go in for it; fancy six months. I was one for work, and I have always been so strong- Believe me to remain, yours sincerely-NURSE S.HODKINSON”.  -When examined at the hospital, a plaster was found over her heart, and on being taken away, a photo of a man was under it. She died the day after the suicide attempt. She leapt from the train at Holmes Chapel receiving awful injuries, while on the London to Buxton train.

63/ Ince, February 1899

Richard Macdonald of Wigan was going to work when, owing to a thick fog he missed his way and fell into the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Ince and was drowned. He was a collier and was 30 years of age.

64/ Holmes Chapel Fatality, September 1885

65/ Kingsley (Pitchfork Death) September 1885

66/ Shurlach, (Drowned in a Well) August 1885

67/ Sanghall near Chester, November 1883 (Man Found Hanging)

Robert Jackson, sixty-seven years of age, was found by a shooting party in Sanghall hanging from a tree. The corpse was in a dreadful state of decomposition and it was discovered later that he’d been missing for three or four weeks. He hung himself from a tree after making his way here from his home-town of Chester. “Suicide while of unsound mind” was the verdict.

68/ Balderton Station (Body Found) August 1901

J.R.Martin, the station-master at Balderton Station, was just checking the place over after the 11-15 a.m.train from Chester had gone through when he observed a body lying on the line. The wicket gates were closed at the time but the body is supposed to be that of a Welshman named Joseph Griffiths, a pedlar from Flintshire.

69/ Bridgewater Canal Murder, Thelwall, April 1885

70/ Marston near Northwich February 1899

71/ Adlington near Macclesfield, March 1900

A farmer in Adlington was going over his land when he saw a man hanging in a tree. He was hanging from the strap on his portmanteau (travelling bag), which itself was nearby and the branches had been trimmed away. The body itself is a man of forty-five, about 5 foot 3 inches, medium build and brown hair. The bag was full of clothing and pawn tickets for a watch and portmanteau were on the body. An address book had the name “Fr.Preime, c/o Mrs Pollard, Northland View, Northgate, Pontefract”.

72/ Orford Barracks Suicide, Warrington, July 1885

73/ Alpraham Suicide, February 1889

William Williams, a shoemaker, committed suicide by hanging himself. Here could be the reason! Williams married a widow with sixteen kids and when he left her he started drinking like a fish. The Coroner summed up “If there was any one thing more than another which proved his insanity, it was marrying a woman with sixteen children”.

74/ Alsager Gun Accident, June 1899

75/ Bowling Green Bank, Chester, January 1890 (Weird Suicide)

Residents of Bowling Green Bank, Chester, saw a black flag hanging out of number 5’s window. Thinking it strange behaviour they got hold of the police, and Sergeant Gallagher and Det. Keegan went to see the owner, Mr Crawford. He answered their questions very calmly saying everything was all right. The next morning, however, the same scene was re-enacted, neighbours worried, police turn up etc. This time he didn’t answer the door so they broke in and there on the bed was old man Crawford. He was immaculately dressed, with a suit, collar and tie on. On a slate, he’d written that he wanted to die and was to be buried in the garb he was wearing. He swallowed some Battle’s Vermin Killer.

76/ Bank Quay Railway Station, Warrington, August 1885

77/ Runcorn Suicide, September 1881

John Sutton, a forty-year-old blacksmith, who lived in Nelson Street with his wife and seven children, killed himself. A neighbour heard an explosion at two p.m., coming from next door. She ran to get his wife and when they got to the bedroom they found Sutton on the bed with half his head missing. Police inquiries discovered information that he’d bought some powder at an ironmonger’s, made up into a bag, popped it in his mouth and lit it. Sutton had been depressed as of late and had no work for a year and this caused ructions in the Sutton household. When they pawned something, he spent the money getting drunk.

78/ Cholmondeley Park (Riding Death) near Malpas, April 1899 (Still there)

79/ Chester March 1905 (22 or 25 Children)

This is unbelievable in today’s world! The body of nine-month-old Nellie Higginson, who was the 23rd child (yes, 23rd) of Thomas and Emma Higginson. Only eight were now alive. Emma had started to drink heavily and she’d neglected the children, all being filthy and partially starving. When asked by court officials how many children she had said “About 22 or 25”.  The verdict of “Manslaughter” was returned.

80/ Moore near Warrington, (Kitchen-Maid Suicide) December 1885

81/ Handforth (Horrific Death) June 1901

This is enough to put you off cycling forever! A solicitor from Ashton-under Lyne, Mr Fish, was out for bike ride with mates and was overtaking “a conveyance” but he didn’t spot the cart heading towards him. The shaft of the cart went straight through his body, and to make matters worse, the horse became scared and bolted off with Fish stuck to the cart. It went a couple of hundred yards before it was stopped. He died the next day.

82/ Chester, September 1883 (Suicide in Tobacconists)

The son of a Cheshire farmer, name unknown, went into Mr Noblett’s tobacconists at Chester and informed him “I am going to poison myself”, then taking a swig of carbolic acid. Mr Noblett managed to wrangle the bottle from him but he ran off. Shortly after this episode he went into the Old Queen’s Head Inn and ordered a beer. He again pulled out the acid bottle poured it in and drank in full view of everyone. The man died within a few minutes. (Who was he?)

83/ Nantwich Child Murder, March 1899

 

84/ St Paul’s Churchyard, Macclesfield, January 1856 (Fatal Accident)

A near-fatal accident occurred in the churchyard at St Paul’s in Macclesfield. John Ridgway, the sexton, was asked to prepare a grave, and this he did. He decided to take out a brace which held in the earth, this caused a mini-landslide and he was buried. People nearby managed to dig him out after a number of hours but he was alive. So there’s a happy ending you may think, but the coincidence of the year had just happened. In the month of May in 1855 his brother, Joseph Ridgway, died under the exact same circumstances. He was ordered to dig an eleven-foot deep grave (Seems very deep to me). He took away a brace holding it all in, and he was buried alive. It was because he died that his brother got the sexton’s job!

84/ Macclesfield Murder, December 1876

Before the magistrates at Macclesfield, Robert Halliwell, rope manufacturer, Bollington and Macclesfield, was charged with the murder of his son Robert, thirteen-years-old. The prisoner has for several months past been in a desponding state frequently expressing that he and his family would die in poverty. Acting on medical advice his family had him removed to an institution at Matlock. One night, he and his wife went to bed, the son slept in the same room. Mrs Halliwell got up at 7-30 leaving father and son alone in the room. Half an hour later he came downstairs and said: “I’ve killed our Robert”. She went to see him. He’d been strangled with the neck being discoloured and bearing finger marks. When questioned afterwards he said he’d done it on impulse and thought he’d put the lad out of his misery. A doctor examined him and said he was clearly insane.

85/ Hutchinson’s Works, Widnes, (Two Dead)August 1892

86/ Widnes Huband Impersonation, January 1st, 1916 (Lincs Standard)

87/ Widnes, January 1st, 1916 (N.Lincs Advertiser)

88/ Tilston near Tarporley (Ice Skating Death) December 1885

89/ Macclesfield Cemetery Suicide, August 1892

Two lads named Birchenough and Siddall were walking through Macclesfield Cemetery when they found the body of a young man. They told police they found him in some bushes by the pond side and it appeared from the injuries he had shot himself in the mouth. The identity of the body was 26-year-old Frank Nosworthy, an actor, who was not very punctual and had to take chlorodyne to sleep properly. A letter addressed to “Mr F.H.Graham, manager of the Dead Letter Company, was found on him and it said that he had felt compelled to commit suicide and he felt his old complaint of his eyesight fading while he was on stage performing the previous night. He further added that it would be impossible for him to carry on due to his eyesight, also saying he was tired of life. He thanked Mr Graham for all his kindness and told him to give his regards “to all the boys and girls at the Theatre”.

90/ Cheshire County Lunatic Asylum, (Murder) October 1903

James Peacock was an elderly inmate at the Cheshire County Lunatic Asylum, who was suffering from paralysis and lived in a single room on his own. An attendant found the door closed, so he entered and found a fellow inmate Prettyman getting undressed and getting into Peacock’s bed. There was no sign of Peacock but there were bloodstains near the bed. When the attendant asked him where Peacock was, he said “I have done for him”- meaning that he had murdered him. Peacock was found in the toilets with various bruises on his face and head and as a result of complications from wounds received he died from pneumonia. Prettyman has also died from natural causes since the attack.

91/ North-Western Hotel Suicide, Crewe, June 1899

92/ Northwich, (Labourer Killed) December 1885

93/ Badger’s Lake Deaths, near Puddington Hall, March 1888 (Badger’s Rake Lane is off the A 540)

94/ Yew Tree Farm, North Rode, (Fatal Fire) July 1870

95/ Great Sankey Murder, November 11th 1870.

 November 24th, 1870

December 23rd 1870

The Warrington Guardian states that James Halloran and Patrick McGrath were charged yesterday before the magistrates with being implicated in the murder of John Forrest at Sankey, Cheshire, last month. A witness swore that McGrath was asleep at his stepfather’s house when the murder was committed, and a clear alibi was established for Halloran. At the conclusion of the case, however, in consequence of other evidence against the prisoners, they were committed for trial.

96/ Execution at Chester Gaol (Samuel Griffiths)   April 1866

97/  Drowning at Parkgate,  October 1866

98/  Fatal Fight at Neston,  December 23rd, 1903.

At Neston, Cheshire, Henry Pritchard, joiner, twenty-eight, and Ernest Grundy, a twenty-five-year-old bricklayer, a week ago entered into a political discussion, which led to a fight. Pritchard sustained an injury to his eye. An operation was performed, but he died last evening. Grundy, upon hearing of his death, cut his throat with a razor, almost severing his head from the body. Both were unmarried.

December 25th, 1903 (The Inquests)

99/ Fatal Railway Collision at Chester Station,  January 1st, 1904.

100/  Drowning in the Shropshire Union Canal, Croughton.  December 1906

101/ Bradeley Hall Murder, Haslington.  March 16th, 1907 (Near Crewe, on Bradeley Hall Road)

Saturday, July 27th 1907 (Crewe Murderer Reprieved)

The Home Secretary has reprieved Thomas William Parrett, a youth of sixteen, who was sentenced to death at Chester Assizes for murdering Albert Birtles, a fellow farm servant at Bradeley Hall Farm, near Crewe. The sentence has been commuted to one of penal servitude for life. It will be remembered that Parrett riddled Birtles with shot, dragged the body to a brook, and subsequently buried it in an orchard.

102/ Murder at Church Lawton, near Crewe.  July 1907

103/  Child Murder at Audlem.  December 1880

104/ Young Lads Drowned at Warrington.   December 1880

On Saturday three youths named Thomas J. Wilkinson, a clerk at the Mersey Mills, James Ashley, fifteen, and William Hurst, twenty, were drowned in the Mersey at Warrington. They were in a boat below the Latchford Weir, and were trying who could pull nearest to it. The boat went under the weir and began to fill with water, then it sank immediately. Hurst was the only one who could swim, and he caught one of his companions by the hand, but, feeling he was being pulled under, let him go and reached the side in an exhausted condition. The body of Wilkinson was found yesterday morning.

1/ St Peter’s Murder, Jersey, May 1866

A murder took place in a small cottage called La Frontiere, near Mount des Vignesi in St Peter’s parish, a few miles from St Helier; Esther Susan Le Brun was the elderly victim. Her neighbour, Miss Le Cornu saw her the night before she died and she also heard some noises during the night as well, but it wasn’t till they found Esther dead in bed with strangulation marks on her neck, that she thought it could have been an intruder. There was blood on the window sill, floor and on Esther’s nightdress that suggested the murderer cut himself on the smashed glass he’d used to gain entry. The strange part is that it seemed to be a personal attack, as no money or jewellery was taken. (Did they ever find the murderer?)

2/ Guernsey, August 1884 (Six Lost)

A solicitor from Kensington-Park, London, a MrW.H.Irving, came to Guernsey for a six-week holiday. He brought his wife, three kids and the governess as well. They hired a boat from a man named Steward, while the governess and Mrs Irving sat this one out. Irvin along with his thirteen-year-old daughter and his two lads aged seven & ten,  Steward and his son were there to take care of navigation. A heavy squall came over along with a thick mist and these conditions caused the sinking of the boat, with all six on board missing in the English Channel.

3/ Alderney, ((Two Privates Drown) October 1888

Private Baldwin and Private Brunning from the East Surrey Regiment were both drowned while fishing from the rocks at Alderney. It is thought that one fell in and the other tried to save him, but they both perished.

4/ Alderney Drowning, July 1889

5/ Corbiere Point, Jersey, (Vessel Sinks) December 1884

A vessel foundered off Corbiere Point in Jersey is believed to be the “Echo” which left St Malo for Guernsey with a cargo of Christmas produce, along with around a dozen passengers. It is feared that all the crew and passengers were drowned in the English Channel.

6/ Plienmont Cliff Fall, Guernsey,  May 1892

A lieutenant in the Royal Guernsey Militia, a Mr Gerald de Jersey aged eighteen, was with some friends at looking for gulls eggs at Plienmont, which is on the westernmost part of Guernsey. He accidentally fell off a 100-foot cliff, down onto the jagged rocks below, killing him instantly.

7/ Sark, July 1898

Miss W.Hyper, an old lady on a visit to Sark, was discovered at the bottom of some cliffs. It is believed to be a tragic accident.

8/ Parame (near St Malo in France) August 1889 (I know it is in France but the priests were from Jersey )

9/ Jersey, (Landslip Kills Three) December 1886

Three brothers, aged fifteen, thirteen and eleven respectively, were crushed to death by a huge landslip in a Jersey quarry. They lived with their father, a postman named Baker, in a cottage at the base of a cliff. The rock must have been loosened by the recent deluges that have occurred in the area, with tons of debris fell on the cottage itself, caving in the back of the house and burying the lads entirely. The father and his daughter were in the front of the house and got out through a gap in the roof. The boys’ bodies were dug out the following morning.

10/ Guernsey, August 1884 (Six Drowned)

A melancholy boating fatality, by which it is feared six persons have lost their lives has occurred in Guernsey. About ten days ago, Mr W.H.Irving, solicitor, St Clair Road, Kensington Park in London, arrived on the island accompanied by his wife, three children and a nursery governess intending to spend about six weeks in Guernsey and Sark. On Friday evening they arranged to go out to the southward for a few hours. The weather was splendid at starting and the boat was in charge of a man called Steward, the other occupants being Mr Irving, his daughter aged about thirteen and two boys aged about seven and ten respectively. Steward’s son assisted in managing the boat. About one o’clock on Saturday morning a heavy squall came on and lasted an hour, along with a fog adding to the danger. Nothing has since been ascertained with regard to the fate of the boat and its occupants, although a search has been made from day to day. Mrs Irving is the only member of the family surviving.

11/ Alderney, May 1902 (450 Feared Drowned)

The Admiralty gave information that three French gunboats were lost during manoeuvres off the coast of Alderney. They are supposed to have got caught in an eddy off Alderney and they sank with no survivors reported as yet. The death toll is estimated at 450 men, with each gunboat having a complement of 150 men on board. (What was the death toll?)

12/ Theatre Royal Fire, Jersey, March 1899

13/ Theatre Royal Fire, Jersey, March 1899

14/ Jersey Murder, June 1866

A murder committed on the island of Jersey was the second in a few weeks (See No 1). A French farm worker named Constant went to the farmhouse of a chap by the name of Renouf and asked his missus for some cider. Mrs Renouf gave him the cider, more out of fear than charity and as she handed it over, he got some dust and gravel and threw it in her eyes then bashed her over the head. She tried to make a run for it, but Constant was hot on her heels. He caught up with her and pinned her down and pulled her hair and kept smashing her head on the flagstone floor. The murderer legged it. She died later that night with a sad addition, that she was pregnant at the time.

15/ St Lawrence Suicide, Jersey, September 1894

In this village in South-Central Jersey, a French miller, Victor Cassin, tried to commit suicide by shooting himself in the throat, in a field near his house. Failing miserably he walked to his house, reloaded the gun then put it to his face blowing it and the top of his head clean off.

16/ Guernsey Officer Suicide, January 1892

Lt.Colonel De Vie Tupper, a retired officer of the 8th Foot Regiment, committed suicide at his home of Les Colls, in Guernsey.He was a soldier in the Crimean campaign, fought at Sebastopol, also was at the Indian Mutiny, and then when he retired he took things easy by being the Supervisor of the State of Guernsey. There had been family problems, so he decided to shoot himself in the study of Les Colls.

17/ St Aubyn Railway Death, Jersey,  September 1885

18/ Jersey, July 1885

Thomas Stockton, Private in the 2nd Worcestershire Regiment was drowned at Jersey yesterday whilst bathing with his comrades contrary to orders. Some of the men who went to his assistance also had narrow escapes.

19/ Trinity Parish Murder? Jersey,  September 1894

Francis Mourant, a farmer in Trinity Parish, who was annoyed at his wife going out to collect sand eels with her mother, pulled a gun on her and shot her in the face. It blew away her nose, eyes and jaw. Not surprisingly she lies in a dangerous condition. Her jealous husband tried to hot-foot it out of town but was captured and arrested. (Did she make it or was he charged with murder?)

20/ St Sampson’s, Guernsey, June 1904

Eighteen-year-old John Spracking got caught in the machinery at the stone-crushing works in St Sampson’s on Guernsey and was mangled to pieces. He died instantly but in great agony.

21/ St Aubins, Jersey,  April 1898

A member of the Medical Staff Corps named Arthur Schofield, who was stationed at Elizabeth Castle, St Aubins, was found in the bay. Schofield is thought to have broken out of barracks one night and drowned while trying to get to the Castle over a causeway covered by the rising tide. It is a notorious local “death trap” and several deaths have happened here over the years.

22/ Rouge Huis, Guernsey? (Longevity on Guernsey) 1899

23/ Noirmont, Jersey, (Suicide Found After Two Months) April 1904

The corpse of a young man in a dreadful state of decomposition was discovered at Noirmont on Jersey. It is believed to be the body of Englishman who came to the island on January the 29th, which means the body has laid there for over two months. He left his portmanteau at the hotel he was staying at, then vanished. The suicide weapon, a revolver, lay close by.

24/ Alderney Manslaughter, December 1897

On Christmas Day on Alderney, a Corporal Crofts of the 2nd Battalion Wiltshire Regiment, who was in charge of the barrack room, refused Private Vincent any more beer. Enraged, Vincent jumped on top of Crofts while he was in bed that night and eventually, Crofts died of his injuries. A verdict of “Manslaughter” was returned against Private Vincent.

25/ St Helier’s Murder/Suicide, Jersey, July 1901

A butcher named Albert, who had a shop in St Helier’s market-place, came home after making deliveries at around 9-30 in the evening. Inexplicably he came in and stabbed his wife behind the ear. She then ran through the market-place screaming “Murder” and fell down dead. Albert calmly with the same knife, slit his throat from ear to ear, dying within a couple of minutes. There were throngs of people in the market-place at the time out for an evening stroll and dozens of witnesses. The verdict was “The man in a fit of passion, murdered his wife, then afterwards committed suicide”.

26/ Jersey Murder, December 1885

27/ Sark, (Steamer Founders) April 1906

The passenger steamer Courier from Guernsey foundered off Sark after just leaving on its way to Guernsey. It had a crew of nine and approximately twenty passengers. The vast majority managed to swim and scramble to the rocks and beaches, where they were rescued by Guernsey steamers. Four people on board are missing: an engineer, two firemen and one male passenger.

Later report-a man named Thorburn from Edinburgh was drowned and the following are missing:-Engineer Holland, of Southampton; two firemen from Guernsey; Miss Frances Waller and Miss Smith, both from London; Miss Long; a boy named Marshall Rushton Ozanne, of Guernsey, and another Guernsey boy, named Edwards. Three passengers and three of the crew were drowned. The cause of the accident was the Courier striking a submerged rock. (What was the death toll?)

28/ St Owen’s Murders,  Jersey, December 1894

I thought Jersey and the Channel Islands had virtually no crime but then I read the Victorian papers and watched Bergerac for a while and I’ve been proved to be wrong. Another murder took place in St Owen’s, Jersey, when John Francis, a local blacksmith was found with his head caved in, near to the village. No arrests were made. (Did they ever get the murderer?) Within a fortnight of this brutal attack yet another was committed, this time it was a woman’s body discovered near a windmill, again with her head bashed in. This was sexual in motive, as she had had her clothes ripped from her body. (Was this one ever found?)

29/ St Helier’sHotel Suicide, Jersey, December 1904

A French couple had eloped and made it to a French hotel at St Helier’s. He was a young gentleman named George Velet and he had deserted from the French Navy and eloped with his bride-to-be, who was the sister of a French lieutenant. Married life would not have suited this pair as they argued well into the night, with Velet having enough, he blew his head off with a revolver killing himself instantly. (What Hotel was it? Is it still there?)

30/ Guernsey, (Carriage Fatality) May 1885

31/ Newtown Braye Double Murder, Alderney, November 1856

A 60-year-old French publican, Jean Langlois and a French labourer named Louis Thiesse were murdered by two young Irishmen, Timothy Kelly aged seventeen and twenty-one-year-old Nugent Loughman. Thiesse was at Langlois’s house in Newtown Braye when the two Irishmen knocked on the door late at night.  They asked for a drink, but being so late they were refused and words were exchanged. Thiesse and Langlois ventured out to go and talk to them and get them off their property, but as soon as they were outside the Irishmen attacked them. Thiesse was stabbed in the heart and died immediately and Langlois was stabbed in the abdomen which he died from a few minutes later. A witness ran to get help but the Irishmen went after him, but he managed to escape and to get assistance for the dying men. The two Irishmen calmly went to their lodgings and bedded down for the night but were arrested early the next morning. (Death Penalty? What pub was it?)

32/ Guernsey Drownings, September 1893

While trying to get to Herm Island, a few miles from Guernsey, three men got into a punt in order to get to a sailing boat moored just offshore. A sudden squall arrived and the sea became choppy and the punt capsized throwing the three lads, named Prianix, Tewkesbury and Hodges into the water. They drowned in the waters but all three bodies were recovered later on.

33/ Jersey, (Mad Ship’s Captain) May 1885

34/ Jersey Public Execution, August 1875

The death punishment was carried out at Jersey on Joseph Phillippe Lebrun aged fifty-two, for the murder of his married sister Nancy Laurens on the 15th of December 1874. He shot her and then tried to kill her husband, Phillippe Laurens. Laurens had left Lebrun alone at his house and gone to St Helier’s and when he came back that evening, he was shot by Lebrun in the face as he opened the door. When police came they found Nancy already dead on the sofa with a gunshot wound to the face, which had killed her instantly. They went straight to Lebrun’s lodgings and arrested him on suspicion of a double murder but he denied knowing anything about it. He kept on denying it until he was publicly hanged by Lincolnshire’s very own, William Marwood.

35/ Gorey Double Murder/Suicide, Jersey, November 1898

A terrible crime took place in the little village of Gorey on the east coast of Jersey, a double murder in fact. The perpetrator was a Royal Artillery pensioner aged fifty-one, named Timothy Towner, who was no stranger to the courts in Jersey, as he was a frequent offender as far as wife-beating goes. This time he had completely lost the plot and slit her throat and that of their 1-year-old baby. He then tried to get into the other bedroom, where the other five children slept but the eldest daughter, hearing the commotion, had smartly bolted the door. Finding it locked he gave up and cut his own throat. The fatal error of his Jersey-born wife was to give the old bastard another chance at the relationship, as she had left before and then he promised to mend his ways. They had eight children together and she was a 36-year-old hard-working housewife, while he was a drunken layabout and he suspected his missus of seeing another man. It was the eleven-year-old daughter that found the bodies and instead of rushing out for help, she quietly and calmly dressed the other children, then made the bed and led them to their uncle’s house who lived nearby.

36/ Jersey, (Clergy Altercation) December 1885

37/ Sark/Guernsey, (Lost at Sea) October 1868

A group of men returning to Guernsey from Sark climbed into the boat which had an experienced boatman, Mansell Renouf at the helm and set off. The men were: Mr Agnew Giffard, his brother, Dr Gatehouse from Sark and Mr Pilcher, a gentleman from London. They left at five p.m. and had been sailing a couple of hours when a squall hit them with a torrential downpour as well, but since then they have not been seen. The following morning a mast and sail were picked up off Sark and was identified as that of the missing vessel, so it is presumed that they were all lost at sea.

38/ Jersey/Canada, (Ends up in Canada!) April 1886

This has got to be one of the weirdest maritime disappearances in Jersey’s history. It involves a young girl by the name of Louisa Journeaux, who went for a sail with a Frenchman one evening and ended up in Canada! She was out in the boat and one of the oars fell in, so the Frenchman dived in to retrieve the oar. The boat drifted away, further and further and he swam to shore to get help. When he explained what had happened nobody believed him and authorities thought he had murdered her. He was let off for lack of evidence. He fled the island and legged it to Paris as he thought he would be lynched if he stayed there. The parents had given up their daughter for dead until nearly a month later they got a telegram from the Colonial Secretary in St John’s in Newfoundland, Canada. It simply said:-“Daughter Louisa picked up near England and landed at St George’s Bay; Quite well”.

It turns out that she was picked up by a steamer on its way to Canada and due to bad weather and fog it was too risky to double-back and drop her off in the Channel Islands, so they took her on a month’s journey to Canada and dropped her off there.

39/ Jersey, (Bathing Fatality) September 1885

 

40/ Exile From Jersey,  September 1870.  Banished for doing nothing!

41/  Guernsey Smugglers Captured,  November 1870.

42/ Jersey- Fatal Quarry Accident  (Portelet Quarry)  December 1870

43/ St Clement’s Bay, Jersey- Boating Fatalities.   November 1870

44/ Suicide of a Major, St Heliers, Jersey.  February 29th, 1904. (Henry James Anson died on 26th of February in 1904. Joanville, Upper Kings Cliffs?)

45/  Sinking of the Excursion Steamer “Courier”, Sark.   May 1906

1/ Tecumseh Suicide, February 1852

A strange suicide took place in this Ontario town. A woman named Williams was being physically abused by her drunken husband, so one night she took an axe to bed and rubbed it against her neck until the windpipe was severed.

2/ Grand River Steamboat Disaster, Ontario, June 1878

3/ Winnipeg Murder/Suicide, June 1898

An English boy of thirteen years of age has committed a dreadful crime. He was told by his master that he couldn’t attend a picnic, so in an act of revenge, he killed his master’s four-year-old son, then shot himself. (The boys name was not mentioned)

4/ Little Rideau Murders, January 1883

5/ Steamboat Disaster- London, Ontario, May 1881

6/ St Eustache, Quebec May 1868

A man named Leban, with his wife as an accomplice used to rob then murder travellers who stopped at their house, at St Eustache, near Montreal, in Canada.This backfired when they attacked one such gentleman, with Leban armed with an axe, and his wife with a cut-throat razor. The stranger knocked Leban down and in the following kerfuffle Mrs Leban cut the throat of her husband by mistake.She was arrested and then confessed all other previous crimes that she and her husband had committed. Dead bodies were buried in the grounds, and police have since excavated three human skeletons.

7/ Dawson City Fire, Yukon Territory, May 1899

Dawson City Fire May 1899

According to advice from Dawson City, three-quarters of the city has been burned down and the loss is estimated at somewhere between one million, to four million dollars.The fire was caused by an upsetting of a lamp.

8/ Dawson City, Yukon Territory June 1899

9/ Nootka Sound, British Colombia, (Crew Murdered) May 1869

It has been ascertained that the crew of the barque,”John Bright”, which was wrecked in Nootka Sound, in British Colombia, were undoubtedly murdered by the Indians. The headless bodies of a number of white men were discovered in that area and it is now deemed necessary that the Government will send a gunboat there to protect the whites.

10/ Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, January 1885 (Orangemen Murdered)

(The riots actually occurred in 1884, and three men were killed.)Nineteen of the Catholics from Riverad, near Harbour Grace, have been acquitted of the murder of the Orangemen in riots in St Stephen’s Bay. They were, however, recommitted on the charge of murdering three others.

11/ Cape Ray, Newfoundland, (Lighthouse Fire) April 1885

A telegram from Ottawa says that the lighthouse at Cape Ray, Newfoundland, has been destroyed by fire. There will be no light at that point until further notice. (Fire in a lighthouse?)

12/ Chatham Fire, New Brunswick April 1899

13/ St John Fire, New Brunswick, May 1899

14/ Toronto, Ontario, (Childrens Bodies Found) July 1895

The bodies of two children were found buried in a cellar of a house in Toronto. They were identified as the children of the man named Pietzel, who were brought to Toronto by a certain Holmes. Mr Holmes has been in prison in Philadelphia for a number of months on charges of the murder of Pietzel and for defrauding an insurance company. (What happened in the end?)

15/ Battleford/Frog Lake (Indians Hanged) November 1885

A telegram from Battleford states that eight of the eleven Indian prisoners, who were tried for being concerned in the massacre of settlers at Frog Lake and were condemned to be hanged, were executed at Battleford today.

16/ Canadian Shipwrecked Crew, August 1890

17/ Anticosti Island Tragedy, January 1873 (Family Wiped Out)

Imagine an island the size of North Yorkshire, in the freezing waters of the Gulf of St Lawrence, then instead of the 600,000 population that North Yorkshire has, it has around 250, maximum.That is Anticosti Island, and that just says it all in a sentence, when describing the sheer vastness of Canada. The Jane Merriman, a fishing schooner reached Gaspe Bay in Quebec after being stuck in East Cape on Anticosti during a storm, on November 26th,1872. The Jane Merriman was badly damaged and laid up here until repairs were made.  Captain Hay found the population in a complete daze due to the tragedy which had just occurred on the 3000 square mile island. The highest lighthouse on Anticosti had been destroyed by the hurricane which hit the coast. It was that severe, that even the base and foundation were swept away, just a pile of debris was left in the general area where it once stood. The home of Edmund Barter and his family was attached to the lighthouse, but Edmund, his wife, and his six children were wiped out.Their bruised and battered corpses were all that remained.They were taken to another inhabitants house, and some effort was made at a religious service for all eight of them.

18/ Newfoundland, (Ships Collide) June 1885

19/ Matane, Quebec, July 1885

A cablegram to the owners of the Beaver Line steamer, Lake Champlain, states that when off Matane, Quebec, she collided with the steamer Dentholm, which sank. The Lake Champlain arrived at Quebec yesterday comparatively uninjured. No lives were lost. The Dentholm was an iron vessel built in Sunderland in 1883, of 1221 tons and was owned in Maryport.

20/ St Thomas’s, Ontario, September 1885 (“Jumbo” killed)

A telegram from New York says intelligence has just been received of the death of the celebrated elephant “Jumbo”, which was brought to America from the London Zoological Gardens by P.T.Barnum. The beast was killed in a railway collision at St Thomas’s in Ontario.

21/ Caledonia Mines Explosion, Cape Breton,  June 17th, 1899

Caledonia Mine, Cape Breton June 19th, 1899

22/ Newport, Nova Scotia, April 1891 (Man Finds Out he Married Sister)

This is a truly awful tale from Nova Scotia. The husband’s name was Lucien Duval, and his father left his wife and went to live on Prince Edward’s Island. Subsequent to his leaving a baby girl was born, but the mother never mentioned it to her outgoing husband that a child was even born.Later on in life, the child was adopted by another family and moved to Newport where she met Duval, and they ended up getting married. In an effort to find out his wife’s parentage, he uncovered the hideous truth. She went completely mad and she drowned herself, while Duval killed himself by hanging.

23/ Irishtown Strange Suicide, New Ross, (New Ross is the old name for Nova Scotia)  April 1889

24/ Manitoba, July 20th, 1885

25/ Manitoba July 20th, 1885

26/ Stratford, Ontario, December 1864 (Discovery of Murder Twenty-Seven years ago)

An ostler made a confession which was relative to a murder that was committed twenty-seven years ago. At that time, he stated, he worked for a landlord and his wife at their tavern when one evening a pedlar turned up and then vanished shortly afterwards. His horse and his effects were sold, and he told police that he had been murdered, then chucked in a well.The tavern has since been burned to the ground, and on the site where the well was, there is now a brick store. The landlord died and his widow re-married. The servant girl who observed the murder, then told the ostler what had happened, s also dead.The ostler knowing what he knew all these years, nearly went mad and kept thinking about the murder. It is not known whether to take him seriously or not but when people in the area were questioned about the matter, they distinctly remember the pedlar going missing.

27/ Long Point, Lake Ontario, (Loss of Ship) June 1889

28/ Newfoundland and Labrador, (Violent Storms) October 1885

29/ Halifax Explosion, Nova Scotia, December 1917 (Explosion- 2000 deaths)

This must rank as one Canada’s worst disasters, where the town of Halifax in Nova Scotia suffered a massive explosion that could be heard over 150 miles away, when the S.S Mont Blanc, collided with the S.S.Imo and ignited the ammunition and explosives on board the Mont Blanc. The result was two thousand dead and nine thousand injured. Around three or four thousand houses were completely destroyed and twenty thousand were made destitute. Schools were blown up, with teachers and children in them and the tidal wave, caused by the explosion, was around forty feet high, drowned the ones that hadn’t been blown to smithereens or burned to death. Damage was estimated at a massive £6,000,000, with the surviving crew members arrested while the Admiralty investigated the disaster.

30/ Cote St Michael Inferno, Quebec, March 1890

31/ Arctic Region, (Encased in Ice) September 1885

1/ Tottenham Court Road Murder, March 1899

 

2/ British Museum Suicide, February 1896

Sat quietly in the Reading Room of the British Museum was a middle-aged gentleman. He sat there at a desk when all of a sudden he gets a razor from his pocket and slits his own throat. Police were called for and he was taken to Middlesex Hospital, but his razor skills were too good. (Who was he?)

3/ Hampstead, Camden, April 1887 (Football Death)

4/ Hotel Russell Suicide, Russell Square, April 1908

Emily Hoare, a 53-year-old woman killed herself while staying at the Hotel Russell in Russell Square. She was discovered at 2 a.m. lying in a crumpled heap on the first floor dressed only in her nightie. She had a broken neck plus other injuries. On the 7th floor, there was a chair next to the bannisters which suggest that she put it there then jumped over the railings, a drop of about 80 feet.- The verdict- “Suicide while of unsound mind”.

5/ Rochester Mews Beheading, Camden Town, April 1894

Three lads were taking a short-cut through Rochester Mews when they saw the grisly spectacle of a human male head lying in the gutter. They got the police to investigate and Kentish Town police are now trying to find the rest of the body. The male is about 30-40 years old, black moustache, black curly hair, and the decapitation were performed very recently. He seems to be a foreigner and the beheading appears to have been hacked at with a blunt instrument, possibly pen-knife.

6/ Whitfield Street Murder, March 1899

 

7/ Bloomsbury, June 1848 (Suicide from Gambling Debt)

Mr Bishop, a wheelwright from Bury Street, Bloomsbury, slit his throat and killed himself. The previous day he had hired a couple of carriages to head off to the horse-racing. While at the races he lost a considerable amount of money, way more than he could afford. Between five and six in the morning he got up to take the key to the workman, and after that, he must have committed suicide.

8/ Hampstead Station Suicide (Camden?) March 1882

An inquest was held at Hampstead on the body of Augustus Bull, the 23-year-old footman to Dr Cooper Rose. He was engaged to a young woman, but she didn’t want to rush things and told him that she would be “happy to regard him as a friend”. To Bull that was a massive kick in the gonads, and his manhood was deflated, so he went down to Hampstead Station on the North-Western Line and dived in front of an oncoming express.

9/ Royal Park Hall Death, Camden Town, February 1888

10/ Hampstead Cemetery Suicide, December 1892

Edward Cornelius Scanes was a 44-year-old husband who was so devoted to his first missus that he killed himself on her grave at Hampstead Cemetery. He had been ill recently, so he decided to go to her plot and shoot himself in the chest. His head rested on the grave next to hers, which was his father’s,  so killed two birds with one stone,  so to speak. (Still there?)

11/ No.3, Bedfordbury, Charing Cross, September 1901 (Child Murder)

This is an awful murder committed by the father, upon the two-year-old son. John Thomas Richardson aged 41, a Covent Garden salesman, cut the boy’s throat at No 3, Bedfordbury, Charing Cross. The policeman who attended the scene said that he found a portion of the child’s lip at the bedside. At the police station, he said he thought the child “had a nerve” and he bit it through the mouth and on the top of its head.

12/ Drury Lane,  July 1890

Two women named Bosworth and Lee quarrelled at a house in Drury Lane, London, on Monday, and the former died from the blows said to have been inflicted by the latter, who was arrested.

13/ Hatton Gardens Murder, April 1889

14/ Middlesex Music Hall Death, Covent Garden,  January 1909

At the Old Bailey, the Grand Jury threw out the bill against Clementine Dolcini, music hall artiste, charged with shooting her assistant, in the “William Tell” act at the Middlesex Music Hall, causing her death. (New London Theatre, now Drury Lane and Parker Street, Covent Garden)

15/ Euston Square Body, May 1879

Mr Bastendorff, the current occupier of the house in Euston Square where the remains of a female have been discovered, said he has lived there for three years and though tons of coal have been put in the cellar and family and staff have been in and out of it, nobody reported a foul stench or seen anything unusual. One servant said she found a bone down there a few days ago but she thought they were meat bones and lobbed them in the bin. They were found and believed to be a foot from the body. One police surgeon thinks that the corpse has been there for three years or so, ever since Bastendorff moved in.

June 1879

Hannah Dobbs was charged with the murder of Miss Hacker, at Euston Square.

16/ Seven Dials, (Westminster/Camden) September 1872

A body was found under the stairs at No 27, Dudley Street, Seven Dials. It was occupied by a few families but nobody knows anything about the dead woman. It was not mummified or decomposed but was in an atrocious condition, being completely naked. There are no marks of violence, and what she was doing there and how she died is a mystery. (Who was she?)

17/ Hampstead Heath Suicide, March 1899 (This is a sad tale!)

18/ Great Wild Street, May 1879 (Body Discovered)

A shocking discovery was made at the back of 58, Great Wild Street, in the cellar normally used for storing baskets for a salesman from Covent Garden Market. He hadn’t been there for numerous weeks but another workman had to go into the cellar. When he opened the door there was a rancid stench that overpowered him. He got P.C. Parker (8 ER), who was in Wild Street, and he found a thirty-year-old woman dressed in rags, dead next to a basket half-filled with bread, but was now mouldy. The doctor who examined her estimated that she had been dead around six weeks and a shell had been put around the body, as it was in such a delicate state. Who she is or what she was doing in there, is unknown.

19/ Castle Road, Kentish Town June 1884 (Human Remains)

Various parts of human bodies were discovered one morning in Castle Road, Kentish Town. The remains are a pelvis and left foot of a teenage child, around fifteen years old, and the right hand of an adult. Police are making inquiries into the strange matter.

20/ Covent Garden, February 1899 (Two Die in Fire)

Seventy-year-old Mary Flanaghan was severely injured by leaping from a window trying to escape from a raging fire in Covent Garden, died in hospital. She is the second fatality, the other being John Dooley, aged 40, who was burnt to death in the fire.

21/ East Park Estate, Hampstead Heath, August 1889 (Dead Body Found)

22/ Leather Lane, (next to Hatton Garden) May 1845 (Double Suicide)

William Cock and Hannah Moore were waiter and kitchen maid at the Bell and Crown, but they got fired for “improper intimacy”. They rented a room at a beer-shop in Cross Street, Leather Lane, and bought some oxalic acid. They diluted it with hot water then let it cool and gulped down the poison. It took her a few minutes to die, but she was writhing round in agony, while it took effect. He, however, felt no such pain, and it had no effect on him so he went got help from the landlady. When she checked the girl she was already dead, but he was arrested by police and could be charged with murder. (If two suicides try to kill themselves and one survives they can be charged with murder). Hannah Moore was only twenty years old.

23/ Cambrian Coffee House Suicide, Great Russell Street, May 1841

This lies on the same street as the British Museum is on. A man calls for a cup of coffee and also asks for a bed, so the waiter takes him upstairs to one of the rooms. The waiter is on his way downstairs when he hears a dull thud so he rushes back up and finds the bloke laying on the floor, with a massive gash in his throat and the head barely hanging on to his neck. There was no identification on him, but his buttons had a boar-head motif on them and made by Messrs trimmer and Co., in the Strand.

24/ Bloomsbury Street Suicide, February 1895 (British Museum also on this)

25/ St Pancras Station Suicide, March 1879

On the 7th March at St Pancras Station, on the Midland Railway platform, the sound of gunshots came from the area of the third-class waiting room. Porters and passengers ran to the room and saw a smartly dressed woman on the floor with a gun in her hand. There was blood oozing from under the right ear and another hole directly opposite, showing that the bullet had gone straight through her skull. There were papers on her with an address in Scarborough, and she was taken to the mortuary. A gentleman arrived in the evening from Scarborough and he identified the woman as Blanche Hudson, his wife. Mr Hudson didn’t even know what she was doing in London at all. Mrs Hudson left home on the 27th of January to visit relatives, her brother in Northamptonshire being the main one. The brother said she had mentioned going to see her legal adviser, in reference to getting a separation from her husband and getting custody of the kids. Mr Brooks, the adviser, said she had a good case for custody, and she whipped out a pistol saying she’d rather kill herself than go back to her husband. The jury found the deceased of unsound mind.

26/ West Hampstead, January 1894

Between the stations of West Hampstead and Brondesbury on the Metropolitan Railway line, the dead body of a child was found on the bank. It was terribly mutilated and the head of the poor little mite had been completely severed from the trunk.

27/ Southampton Row, January 1884 (Bodies Found)

While in the process of knocking down some old buildings in Southampton Row, London, some workmen found two human skulls and other bones at the back of No 54, Devonshire Street. They were buried in quicklime, and are estimated to have been there for a couple of years. The current occupant of the house said he knew nothing about the bones. Police are making inquiries.

28/ Kentish Town Murderer, July 1890

 

29/ Clare Market, September 1899

A woman named Beamish, wife of a Covent Garden porter, fell out of a second storey window at 3, Clare Market, Drury Lane. On her descent, to the ground, she was impaled on some railings, the ones with the pointed spikes, and they went through her legs. She stayed in that position until her neighbours came to her rescue, and she was rushed off to Charing Cross Hospital.

30/ Great Wild Street Murder, Drury Lane, March 1899

Great Wild Street is a little street that leads off Drury Lane and was the scene of the murder of a chap named Joseph Wootton. The deceased was in Stanhope Buildings in Great Wild Street when an argument broke out between him and another man. Wootton ended up being shoved out of the window and landed head-first on the pavement. A man, Michael Joseph Holland, was arrested and charged with the murder of Wootton, but he denies any knowledge of the incident. Police searched his room and found deceased’s hat in there, and it looked as though there had been an altercation between someone.

31/ Furnivalls Inn, (Holborn area), December 1889

32/ Gospel Oak Station Suicide, February 1883

40-year-old Charles Farmer went to the Gospel Oak Station on the London and North-Western Railway and got a ticket for Broad Street. On the journey, the ticket-collector was doing the rounds, when he heard a painful groan coming from the toilets. He asked the occupant if they were all right, but got no answer, so he tried to gain entry, but the door was locked. They forced it open and found Farmer on the floor with an empty bottle of oil of vitriol. Farmer just garbled the words that he’d poisoned himself, then gave him a piece of paper.It read:- “C.Farmer,17 Roderick Road, Mansfield Road, Kentish Town.- Cannot hold out any longer. Mrs Payne will look after my wife. My love to all. Goodbye. Ask Mr Shepherd to forgive all. Tell him to look after my goods.” He was rushed to hospital in Hampstead Road but died an hour later. The post-mortem examination revealed that the deceased had died from sulphuric acid poisoning.

33/ St Pancras, Stuckley Place, October 1887

Bessie Smith aged 24, an artist’s model, was found with her throat slit in a house in Stuckley Place (that could be Stukeley) She was a single mother, liked a drink, and was not intellectually gifted. The wound was huge nearly taking the head clean off, but she had done it herself and death would have been instantaneous. A witness said he often helped her out when she was hard up, which was quite often, and she was depressed most of the time.

34/ Kentish Town Child Murder, November 1887

A man was in the school-grounds in Leighton Grove, when he discovered the trunk of a fully developed male child. Police were called to the scene and a search in the neighbouring grounds resulted in the legs, hands and feet were found. They were all skilfully carved from the body, and this is now a case of child murder.

35/ Drury Lane (Westminster/Camden) December 1885

36/ High Holborn Suicide, July 1857

25-year-old Frances Thompson committed suicide at the Photographic Rooms, No 83, High Holborn, by running into the room and swallowing a mouthful of cyanide of potassium from a basin. When she had done it, she cried out “I have done it, Bob!”. Mr Winter, the owner of the rooms, said that deceased had lived with Bob some time and the two of them had several kids with each other. Arguments had come thick and fast recently as he found out that she had been robbing him, so he told her to get out. She ran upstairs, as he thought to pack her stuff and leave, but it was here that she drank the cyanide of potassium and killed herself. (Is 83 High Holborn still about?)

37/ Covent Garden Theatre Death, January 1882

While performing in front of four thousand poor children in the pantomime “Little Bo Peep”, Sydney Powell, aged seventy-two, who had worked at the Covent Garden Theatre for the last twenty years or so, keeled over and died while he was directing a lime-light onto an actress playing one of the flies. He was the oldest employee at the Theatre but he enjoyed good health, and always seemed to be in a jaunty mood. He was great-uncle to Walter Powell M.P. for Malmesbury, who died in a balloon crash some time ago.

38/ Anglo-Italian Club, Holborn, August 1890

At Clerkenwell Police Court on Monday, Ambali Tos, an Italian, was charged with stabbing James Sullivan at The Anglo-Italian Club, Holborn, that morning, after the complainant had trodden on a young woman’s toes while dancing and had apologised. The prisoner was committed for trial.

39/ George St, Hampstead Road, December 1904

40/ Euston Square Station, (Children’s Bodies Found)  January 1871

The discovery of the dead bodies of two children, found in a box at Euston Square Station, caused quite a stir in the neighbourhood. One was a boy and the other was a girl, they were nine months old, and twins. For the vast majority, we don’t understand why adults could inflict such injuries upon a helpless baby, and this is no different. They had their noses cut off, upper jaws injured, and several teeth knocked out. They were both suffocated to death to finally end their miserable little lives. Coroner thought it was an exceptional case and therefore the Home Office should offer a reward. (See Carlisle 1870)

41/ Kentish Town, August 1889

42/ Euston Station, August 1862 (Abandoned Baby)

A shocking act of human cruelty was discovered at Euston Station, of the London and North-Western Railway. A woman went into the W.C. near the waiting-room, when she came across a bonnet box. A policeman was summoned, and upon him opening the box it was found inside a month old baby boy. It seemed that he wouldn’t make it, as it appeared to have been poisoned but doctors did all they could, and miraculously it has survived and now he has been put in the care of the local Workhouse.

43/ Seven Dials, Covent Garden(Camden/Westminster)  October 1883

One afternoon in Seven Dials, the funeral of the fishmonger who killed himself the other day, in the Seven Dials area, was taking place. A rumour was abound that the poor fellow had committed suicide because of the conduct of his wife, and this whipped up a strong feeling against her. A crowd had accumulated nearby and they were whooping and wailing, as the body drew nearer and anger began to spill over at the wife’s expense. She was unable to leave the house as the crowd became violent, and threats were hollered at her, and the hearse was waiting outside for a considerable time. The wife was eventually ushered out and the hearse made it’s way to the cemetery, but the mob followed and the scene became violent at the grave-side. Police managed to get the woman out in one piece and then the crowd dispersed.

44/ York Street, Covent Garden March 1868

Just after 11 o’clock on Tuesday morning in York Street, Covent Garden, James George Francis, aged 17, fell from the top floor of the building occupied by Messrs Bell & Daldy, publishers. He was a porter there and was shaking out the carpets on the roof-top, and when leaving it was usual to slide down an incline. Instead of doing this, Francis ran, and there is no railing near the guttering and he fell into the backyard. He was killed on the spot, and his father, who lives in Drury Lane, arrived at the scene, just as they were taking his son to the mortuary at St Paul’s in Covent Garden. The fall was around 40-50 feet.

45/ Torrington Square, (Mysterious Death) Bloomsbury, December 1885

46/ St Pancras Station Fatality, September 1885

After the arrival at St Pancras Station yesterday morning of the Midland mail train, the driver, Henry  Saracen of Leicester, began to examine and oil the engine. While he was thus engaged he was struck by the gear of a passing postal van and severely injured. He was at once taken to hospital but died soon afterwards from internal injuries.

47/ Charlotte St, Fitzroy Square, June 1885

At 2-30 a.m., a fire occurred at 71, Charlotte St, Fitzroy Square, on the portion of the premises tenanted by Mr F.N.Miller. From an unknown cause, the front room on the ground floor caught fire but the flames were soon subdued. It was then found that Mr Miller had been burned to death.

48/ West Hampstead Station Suicide, March 1892

49/ Red Lion Street, Holborn September 1886

Frederick Goodman, aged 78, who resided at 8, Red Lion Passage, Red Lion Street, Holborn, killed himself under the following extraordinary circumstances. Goodman was a tin-plate worker and had been depressed for quite a while and relatives didn’t suspect his suicidal tendencies. He was discovered early one morning in his room, enveloped in flames, after having tied his legs together, then poured a can of petrol (benzoline) over himself, then self-immolating. The fire was extinguished, and he was rushed off to the Royal Free Hospital, and doctor’s examined him. He had severe burns to head, chest and the rest of his upper body, and these burns caused his death a few hours later from shock and exhaustion, not the burns themselves.

50/ Kings Cross Station, (Camden/Islington) July 1883 (Baby in a box)

An inquest was held on the discovery of the body of a baby found in a box in a store-room in King’s Cross Station on the Metropolitan Railway. Annie Howlett, a servant, originally from Thame in Oxfordshire, now living in Ealing, stated that in December of 1881 she ran away from home.  She went to London with Fanny Lester and were met by Georgina, Fanny’s sister on their arrival, and she took them to Drury Lane. The day before they left Oxfordshire, Annie gave Fanny some pieces of clothing of hers to put in a box, which she did. They arrived in London on the 18th December, and Fanny Lester left the box at Portland Road Station cloak-room. The promise of calling for it the next day never materialized, and Howlett asked Lester several times to go and retrieve the box because she wanted the items of clothing out of it. Lester said she had no money to pay for it. The witness was shown the box at Kings Cross Road police station, and she recognised it as the one belonging to Lester. How the child got into the box, was nothing to do with her, she said. Howlett hadn’t seen Lester for a few months so what had occurred in those intervening months is a mystery. (Who’s was it?/Who was lying?)

51/ Kentish Town, April 1885 (Death from Starvation)

 

52/ Midland Grand Hotel, St Pancras, June 1893 (Suicide)

Mrs Weston Webb, who was staying at the Midland Grand Hotel, killed herself in a horrific manner. Weston Webb was one of a party of four or five people who were in London on a mini-break from the North of England. She had a nurse with her, due to her poor health, a couple of cousins, and another man and woman. They took it in turns to keep an eye on Weston Webb, and a cousin who was looking after her left her on her own for a couple of minutes. With amazing speed and dexterity for an ill person, she opened the window, climbed onto the balcony, then plunged headfirst onto the pavement, which is a drop of approximately 200 feet. There was quite a mess at the bottom as you can imagine, and the remains were scooped up and taken to the mortuary. This is now the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, closed in 1935, then re-opened in 2004 as a hotel again.

53/ Thirteen Club, Holborn, April 1913

Southwark Central Library was given a collection of strange objects, given by R.W.Bowen, which are items from the “Thirteen Club”, which wasn’t around for very long, but it was formed to combat everyday superstitions. Broken mirror, a skull, and a salt-cellar in the shape of a coffin were used at the last dinner of the club, held at the Holborn Restaurant on January 13th,1894. It was held in Room 13, and had thirteen tables, with thirteen dinners at each table. All the knives were crossed, and salt was deliberately spilt, and, this I never knew, the waiters were all cross-eyed. Is that unlucky? A mirror was smashed at the feast, and on entering the room they had to walk under a large ladder. The club is now defunct. Other strange clubs were the “Suicide Club” in the USA, and the “Husband Murdering Club” in Hungary, which are listed here.

54/ Camden Road Murder, March 1885

55/ Bernard Street, Russell Square August 1869

Just for a change in Victorian England, the story of a suicidal teenage domestic servant. This was 17-year-old Charlotte Matilda Hopkins, who was found dead in her room at 51 Bernard Street, Russell Square. Her mother came from Soho to identify the body of her daughter and she said that she seemed in good health several days ago, when she last saw her, and that she had a boyfriend called Tom, but everything was fine between them. Her mistress, Mrs Harriet Homan, said Charlotte had lived with her as a domestic servant, and stated that it was the norm to get her up between 6-7 in the morning, but on the morning of her death, there was obviously no reply. She walked in and discovered her dead in bed. Police came and found a teacup, lemon pieces, and a glass by the bed, and an oxalic acid paper in the fireplace. Also found was a letter dated July 29th, 1869, and addressed to her parents and siblings. It was as follows:-

“I now sit down with a sad and painful heart, but I hope that you will think as much of Tom as you did. I hope that my sisters will be better than I have been. When I am far away from home and in my grave, and all my bones are rotten, take this note and think of me. Let me not be forgotten. My Dearest Mother, I wish that you had kept me at home on Monday night, but that is God’s will. Goodbye, and God Bless you all. Will you give my love to all my friends and sisters, and to Mrs Capen-to them all; and to my dearest Tom, and to all of them; and accept the same, my dear mother and father? I love you more than I can tell, for you have been good and kind to me. I am dear mother, your child, Charlotte Matilda Hopkins.Goodbye.God Bless you all!”

The mention in the letter about keeping her on Monday night was about a letter she got from an emigration society for servants, and her agreement, if not adhered to, would result in three months jail, or £10 fine. Her mother told her to go back to work and not to worry, but it was this that preyed on her mind and caused her to commit suicide. A juror demanded to know the name of the society, and it was revealed as Servants Emigration Aid Society. It offered servants a chance to go abroad, the coroner said it was all right to offer women this opportunity but to do it with intimidation and threats made it illegal. A glass on the side had crystals in it, so they deduced that she had mixed the acid with port, or stout, and drunk it. It left crystals behind in the glass, so that was her cause of death.

56/ Torrington Square Stabbing,  May 1885 (It’s in Bloomsbury)

 

57/ Gray’s Inn Road, November 1876 (Child Neglect)

58/ Bloomsbury Child Murder/Suicide, January 1887

Alice Mallard, the wife of a cabman, living in Torrington Mews, Bloomsbury, on Tuesday, murdered her infant child and afterwards cut her own throat with a lancet. The dead bodies of the woman and child were discovered by the neighbours.

59/  Euston Square Station (Mysterious Death)   July 1870.

 

60/ Kingsgate Street, Holborn (Burnt to Death)  July 1870   There is a 53 Kingsgate Road in Holborn, but not the street. Is this the same? Reminds me of the road from 1970’s sitcom “Robin’s Nest”.

61/ Great College Street Fatality (could it be Royal College St?)  September 1870    Goldington Crescent is still there, St Pancras Rd, now Pancras Rd. Next to St Pancras Hospital.

 

62/  Drummond Hotel Suicide  August 1870   (Drummond Hotel, was at 54, Drummond St. Can’t find 54, long since gone/demolished?)

 

63/  College Terrace Suicide, Hampstead.   July 1870.

64/ Camden Station Fatality,  December 1870

65/ Euston Square Station Death,  October 1870

An inquest was held at the College Arms Tavern, Camden Town, on the body of Israel Hoppett, aged fifty-nine, a gatekeeper in the employ of the London and North Western Railway Co. at the Euston Square Station. John Lee, engine driver, stated that on Saturday last while the deceased was standing by the side of the line and the St Alban’s train, having discharged its passengers, was being pushed out of the station at about 6 m.p.h., the buffer of a carriage struck him in the back, threw him on his face, and the wheels of eight carriages passed over his body. Dr Joseph Hill examined the corpse and the jury returned a verdict of “Deceased expired from injuries received at Euston Square Station, and the same arose from accidental causes”.

66/ St Pancras Fatality (Cambridge Street)  December 1870

67/ Death From Destitution, Bloomsbury?  October 1870

68/ Starved to Death at Gray’s Inn Rd,  November 1870

69/  Albert Road Bridge Suicide, Camden.   October 1870

70/ Vitriol Suicide (Brunswick Sq/Hunter St)   October 1870

71/ Death of a Yeoman,  June 1902.  (Beaten up on Euston Road)

72/ Child Murder in King’s Cross,  November 1903.

73/  Fatal Jump From Burning House,  July 1903.

A fatal fire occurred at a lodging-house at St Pancras, on Monday morning. The inhabitants found their escape cut off by the flames, and several, too panic-stricken to wait for the fire escape, jumped from the windows. Daniel Whitehouse fell on the pavement with a terrible crash, and two other men were also injured. All three were taken to the hospital, where Whitehouse succumbed.

74/ Murder in Whitfield Street, Camden,  December 1903.  (Goodge Street Station behind it)

Saturday, January 9th, 1904

The inquest on the body of Dora Piernick, 29, the Polish Jewess, who was found dead with her throat cut at Whitfield Road, Tottenham Court Road, was opened on Monday. There is some mystery regarding the case and the evidence available points more to suicide. The suicide theory is supported by the absence of any signs of a struggle, and the deceased was so powerfully built and died so slowly that had she desired help she could have called out for a long time. The wound is also from left to right, as it would have been in the case of suicide. The inquiry was adjourned for a month for an analysis of the stomach.

75/  Accidental Poisoning, Kings Cross.  January 1904.

76/ Botched Abortion Causes Death, Euston Road.   March 1904.

77/ Cat-eating Lodger of Bloomsbury,  March 1904

78/ Suicide of an Actress, Millman Street, Bloomsbury.  September 1904

79/  Murder in Compton Street, Bloomsbury.  March 1905

80/ German Baron’s Suicide in Actress’s Boudoir, Russell Square, Bloomsbury.

81/ Botched Abortion Surgeon on a Charge of Murder, Kentish Town.   November 1906

December 13th, 1906.

Arthur Raynor, aged fifty-seven, physician, was found guilty of the manslaughter of Anne Lilian Martin, of Maldon Road, Kentish Town. The allegation against the prisoner, who had a practice in High Road, Kilburn, was that he performed an illegal operation on the deceased. He had been a confirmed alcoholic and had at one time kept his carriage and a pair of servants in North London, but had now sunk to rock bottom. One strange fact after all this happened, was the fact that the husband of the deceased had mysteriously vanished.

82/  Woman Poisoned at Rochester Square,  December 24th, 1906. ( Rochester Square, near Camden Road Station)

15th, January 1907.

The inquest was concluded today on the body of Mrs Benbow, a wealthy Camden Town lady, who died on the 16th of December, 1906. In consequence of certain rumours of poisoning, the coroner, it will be remembered, stopped the funeral and ordered an autopsy. No trace of poison was found. It was also alleged that the deceased’s nephew’s forced liquor upon her. This was not proved, and the jury found that death was from syncope, due to her drinking. Syncope is a temporary loss of consciousness by a drop in blood pressure.

83/  Devil’s Island Fugitive Shot in Russell Square.  June 1907. (Edward Guerin)

84/  Camden Town Murder.   October 26th, 1907  (Emily Dimmock murdered by Arthur Wood)

Saturday, 21st December 1907. (The Verdict)

The trial of Robert Wood for the murder of Emily Dimmock concluded at the Old Bailey on Wednesday. Mr Justice Grantham, in summing up, said it was the most remarkable case within his experience. The jury, after an absence of fifteen minutes, found the prisoner “Not Guilty”, and he was discharged. The result was received in court with cheer after cheer, and outside there were extraordinary scenes of enthusiasm.

85/  Child Manslaughter/ Child Cruelty, Camden.  November 1880 (The border of Camden/Westminster runs down the Broad Walk in Regent’s Park.)

86/  Death on the Railway, Kentish Town/Haverstock Hill.   November 1880

An inquest was held at St Pancras Coroner’s Court as to the death of George Brown, aged twenty-four years, residing in Huntley Street, a number taker in the employment of the Midland Railway Company, at their Cattle Station, Kentish Town. On Saturday evening the deceased was walking on the line between Kentish Town and Haverstock Hill Station when a light engine came up and ran him over. He was so severely injured that he died in a few minutes. Mr Earp, the London district superintendent of the Midland Railway, said deceased was a most careful man, and had recently been promoted to be a number taker on that account. The jury returned a verdict of  “Accidental death”.

87/ Death due to Starvation, Camden Town.   November 1880

1/ Wimblington near March, February 1896 (Quadruple murder/suicide)

Mary Jane Farnham and her four children had not been seen by her parents for a number of days, so they sent a couple of her brothers to find out where she was. They got the help of P.C. Lee, and entered the cottage through a window and immediately found the four-year-old and eleven-year-old with their throats cut. They were in their night-clothes, and this suggests they were in bed asleep while mummy dearest had slit their throats. In the bedroom, an identical scene presented itself. A little girl of three, and a boy of eight, also had their throats slit, with Mrs Farnham’s head was resting on the three-year-old’s body, with the knife in the neck and the entire scene a blood-bath. Apparently, she was a good mother with no financial or psychological problems so the reason for this rash act is unclear.

2/ Cambridge, Trinity College Suicide, May 1891

Arthur Edward Ellis was found dead in his room at Trinity College from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The gun was next to his lifeless body, and it is thought that the pressure of an exam due in a few days was the reason for lad’s self-destruction.

3/ Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, January/February 1867

4/ Ely Cathedral Death, April 1901

A Justice of the Peace from Burnley, Lancashire, Mr.John Butterworth, expired in Ely Cathedral, probably from a heart attack as he suffered from heart disease.

Butterworth was on his way to Cromer for a break and stopped off in Ely for a little look around. He had lunch at the train station then made his way up to the cathedral. He entered and was taking in the painted ceiling when he keeled over. He was 64 years old, which in Victorian times was a cracking age.

5/ Kimbolton Church Suicide, Cambridgeshire, October 1887

Thomas Chattell, 44, a parish clerk from Catworth attended an Oddfellows meeting at the Black Swan Inn. Straight after this, he walked into the church and never came out. Mrs.Chattell realized her husband was still not back from the night before and conducted a search party, when lo and behold they found him in the pew where he did his duties as a parish clerk. He had slashed his throat with a razor.

6/ Peterborough Railway Station Death, September 1887

 

7/ Clare College Suicide, Cambridge, May 1849 (Suicide)

Edward Hayman, sizar of Clare Hall, was found with his throat cut, and a suicide note next to him, covered in blood, read;-

“Goodbye, father.Thank you, dear Henry, for—“. He hailed from Somerset and was 21, and by all accounts, he was a promising student. Hayman made two efforts at suicide, the first being on a high desk nearby, which was covered in blood as well, then wrote the note and went to his bedroom for a second try, which succeeded.

8/ Catherine Hall Suicide, Cambridge, October 1840

An undergraduate named Hofman, 25 years of age, had failed in a couple of exams. This was all too much, so he took some poison and ended it all in his room.

​

9/ Tydd St Giles, December 1900

 

10/ Whittlesey, July 1895 (Scythe Attack)

11/ March, Cambridgeshire April 1851

Mr Edward Miller, a brewer, discovered that two of his servants had been pinching his flour so he asked them about it and they admitted it, so he let them off, as long as they didn’t do it again. Next day the two girls and another servant of Miller’s sister went missing at the same time. They were found in a field, one of them was dead. At the inquest, it was said they bought three lots of laudanum in different chemists, so they could commit a suicide pact together. They all went to the field, lay down, and took their poison. Two of the girls vomited theirs up but Mary Ann Sutton swallowed hers and died from the effects. Sarah Archer said she took it so she wouldn’t be laughed at and derided for her stealing. Sarah Ann Roberts said she did it because Sutton and she were “partners” and she loved her so much, that she would rather die than be without her. The law states that if two people tried to commit suicide and one succeeded and the other survived then that person was guilty of aiding and abetting a murder. (Charged with murder?).

12/ Peterborough Suicide, August 20th, 1885

Peterborough Suicide, August 25th, 1885

13/  Cambridge Fatality,  March 1885

14/ Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, May 1852

A weird accident happened at Melbourn in Cambridgeshire.Some kids were playing, and one was dragging a wash-trough on wheels, and in it was an infant of 16 months, Emily Dearman.A horse and cart were coming down the road when a child saw it coming, left it in the middle of the road, with Emily in it, and the horse trod on her head, literally squashing her brains out.

15/ Peterborough Drownings, June 1899

Two cases of drowning are reported from Peterborough. A little girl named James lost her life while paddling in the River Nene, and a man named Tatham was drowned while bathing a disused clay-pit.

16/ Stapleford, January 1899 (Vicars Strange Will)

17/    Hinxton near Cambridge, November 1905 (Child ground in Mill)

A terrible accident happened at Hinxton near Cambridge when John Tabor was left outside the mill shed for a little while. The father, who worked at the mill, heard a grinding noise, and when he ran to the spot he saw his son being ground up under the mill-stone. He was terribly mangled and died a nasty death.

18/ Ely, Cambridgeshire, August 1892

19/ Peterborough Cathedral Suicide   November 1889

Because of the sexton’s suicide in Peterborough Cathedral, it has been raised that it will have to be re-consecrated. The matter came before the chapter and the clerk and it was mentioned that there was no statute or law making it compulsory. (What was done?)

20/ Cambridge Murder, March 1890

21/ Cambridge, August 1879

A woman was convicted at a court in Cambridge of illegally pawning. After the court appearance, she told her daughter to remove a basket at her house. The girl went to her home, but opened it, and saw to her horror, a dead child packed in lime.

22/ St Neots, Cambridgeshire, March 1899

23/ Peterborough, October 1908

An ex post-office employee, named Bunning, cut the throat of a widow named Hicks, then went to the River Nene, and threw himself in. She was not that badly injured and walked to Hospital. Bunning wanted her to marry him, but she fancied someone else.

24/ The Wash/The Nene, August 1892 (Boating Accident)

25/ Newmarket Road, Cambridge, November 1858

Susan Butler was with a friend in a fly (Two-wheeled gig?), and they had been drinking. While at an inn the two women were chatted up by a couple of blokes and they went with them in the trap. Butler wanted to drive despite her alcohol intake, she went off at a furious pace and this caused the trap to tip over, they were all throw out and Butler was killed. “Accidental Death” was the verdict, caused by the driver’s actions.

The two men, who were thrown clear, were two University graduates, and the tutor and master of the college attended the hearing, just to make sure.Money talks eh!

26/ Peterhouse College, Cambridge, June 1895

27/ Cherry Hinton near Cambridge, May 1873

Mrs Gregory, of Cambridge, was the widow of the Rev.James Charles Gregory, formerly of Canterbury. The lady was for the past two or three years, really depressed, especially in spring or autumn(Seasonal Affected Disorder), and for the last week or so she’d been especially bad. She went to a brook in Cherry Hinton, after she posted a letter to her sister stating that she could endure life no longer. She was 51 years old and leaves six orphans, and the verdict accordingly was “Temporary Insanity”.

28/ Nunton Crossing, Helpston, August 1866

29/ Huntingdon Execution, November 1878

30/ Woodstone, Cambridgeshire, November 1861

31/ Parson Drove, Wisbech, December 1879

32/ Parson Drove Murder, August 1861

33/ Huntingdon Station Suicide, June 1887

A baker from Huntingdon committed suicide by leaping in front of the Leeds Express which was passing through Huntingdon Station. The young man, now identified as Pettit, stood on the platform of the Great Northern Station and just as it was passing, he jumped in front, the train carrying him some distance away, and mutilating his body.

34/ Easton, Cambridgeshire, March 1860 (Double Suicide)

An elderly couple, named Saddington, both in their 70’s, and having lived in Easton for many years, were found drowned in a pond opposite their cottage dressed only in the nightclothes. The local bobby was on his beat and heard a scream at 11 o’clock, and he eventually found the two bodies floating in the pond. The possible reason for the double suicide was that these two had been to Huntingdon to the guardians for relief. That was turned down and they were told they could go to the Union Workhouse. This, they didn’t want, so it seems they jointly decided to drown themselves, but getting rid of furniture, paying debts and so on, first. The verdict was “Found Drowned”.

35/ Market St. Suicide, Cambridge.   December 1870   (Webb’s Coffee House?)

36/ St Neots Railway Suicide,  October 1870

On Saturday 15th October, a young man of respectable appearance, and apparently about twenty-two years old, committed suicide by placing himself on the metals (rails) of the Great Northern Railway in front of a heavy coal train, which passed over him, severing his head from his body, and otherwise mutilating him. Death was, of course, instantaneous. The scene of this determined self-murder was between St Neots and Sandy, about a mile and a quarter south of the former station. The time was about 9-45 a.m. The remains of the unfortunate young man, which it is, needless to say, were not at all recognisable, were promptly removed from the spot to await the coroner’s inquest.

37/ Body Found near Jesus College,  January 1866.

38/  Fatal Accident on the River Cam, Grantchester.  February 1866

39/ Ely Railway Station Fatality,  November 1866 (Ely Station still looked a bit precarious when I last saw it. On Station Rd it is overgrown with weeds and very antiquated.)

40/  Little Abington Letter Bomb,  December 1866 (An infernal machine is akin to a letter bomb, or a time bomb)

41/ Swavesey Murder/Suicide,  June 1866

42/ Painting his Wife, Wisbech.  April 1902.

43/  Wisbech Court Bailiff Suicide,  May 1902.  (South Brink)

44/ Death on the Railway, Holme Station.  October 1902  (Holme is seven or eight miles from Peterborough)

45/ Murder of Two Children at Peterborough,  July 1903

46/ French Drove Drownings,  October 1903  (French Drove is a road. Literally, one end is in Cambridgeshire, the other in Lincolnshire, near Crowland)

47/ Killed by Lightning at Stechworth,  September 1903.  (At the bottom of the clipping, it should read ” Death was due to a visitation of God”)

48/  Baby Dies in Pram Fire, Tydd.   July 1904.

49/ Fatal Cycling Accident near Peterborough, October 1904.

50/ Meldreth Murder, April 16th, 1904.

April 30th, 1904.  Murder Charge against a Boy.

Frank Rodgers was committed for trial charged with the murder of his mother at Meldreth, on April 12th. Winifred Rodgers, sister of the accused, stated that on the night of the occurrence her mother was half asleep under the influence of drink. Her brother never complained to anyone of deceased’s drinking habits, which seemed to worry him a great deal. Accused was very fond of his mother, and they called him “Mother’s Boy”. He had been quiet and irritable lately and had complained of headaches. Dr Ennion said the lad told him on the night of the tragedy that a voice had distinctly told him to shoot his mother quickly, but he did not remember loading or firing the revolver. He also said that for two or three months he thought he saw his mother constantly behind him. When asked if he wanted to say anything by the Chairman, the prisoner shook his head and said: “No, sir”.

51/ Honeymoon Murder/Suicide, Peterborough.   July 1905

52/  Woman Shot Dead in Kirtling,  December 1905.  (Accident or Deliberate?)

53/ Death Sentence for Wife Murderer, Kirtling.  January 1906

54/ Westwood Street Suicide, Peterborough.  January 1906.

55/  Young Man Drowned in River Nene., Castor.  April 1907

56/ Ghost as a Will-Finder, Thorney Estate, near Peterborough.   January 1907.

A farmhouse on the Duke of Bedford’s Thorney Estate, near Peterborough, has long had the reputation of being haunted by a lady in a red chintz dress, who, witnesses assert, always beckoned towards the ceiling of a certain bedroom. Investigation amongst the beams of the roof has now led to the discovery of the will of a farmer named Cave, who died at the farm over a century ago, leaving an estate of £10,000.

57/ Death of a Teenager, Fulbourn.  December 1880

1/ Husband Keeps Wife’s Dead Body, High Wycombe.   February 1910

A husband and wife and their five kids all lived in a “poor quarter”, and these conditions spread disease like wildfire. She lost her fight for life from blood poisoning due to the squalor she lived in, but the husband kept his dead wife’s body in bed with him for a day or two, when he finally died from pneumonia. Quite romantic or creepy?

2/ Thornton Hall near Buckingham, June 1885 (Vicar’s Suicide)

3/ North Crawley, (Killed by Reaping Machine) August 1889

4/ Padbury Vicarage, March 1892 (Vicar’s Suicide)

5/ Locks Fenny near Milton Keynes, February 1896 (Body in Chimney)

A burglar tried to come down the chimney of a tap-room at the Locks Fenny, Stratford. He climbed on the roof of some out-houses then made his way to the main roof, and down the chimney. Mr and Mrs Wodhams, who live there, woke up when the room filled with soot. They thought nothing of it and went back to sleep. Next morning they got a chimney sweep to sort out the problem and while up there he found the body of the would-be thief.

6/ Winslow Murder/Suicide, May 1908

Richard Warner, aged twenty-six, killed his father then shot himself in a bizarre murder/suicide in Winslow. The family was of good stock and was soon to have been confirmed, but his nerve failed him and his mind is said to have been unhinged recently. He shot his Dad in the house, then went to an outbuilding and took his own life.

7/ Moorend near Marlow, May 1901 (Child Murder)

The wife of James Titt, who lived in Moorend near Marlow, together with her five-month-old child, was found at the bottom of a well on her property. Somebody saw the body of the child floating on the surface, so it was recovered, then they found Mrs Titt at the bottom of the well. Before this tragedy, she had been chatting with neighbours quite normally, with no sense that she would kill herself or the child.

8/ Great Horwood Abduction, December 1885

9/ High Wycombe Tragedy, September 1902

A tragic accident took place at High Wycombe, in connection with the building of the new railway between Wycombe and London. At about two a.,m. the night shift was working in a tunnel between Loudwater and Beaconsfield when a huge amount of earth buried them. The men, eight in number, were 100-feet underground, in a 400-yard long tunnel. After several hours of digging they recovered six bodies, the names are -Walter Knight, George Smith and John Reed, who are miners, and Harry Moreton, James Palmer and William Palmer, all labourers. (The total number of dead?)

10/ Great Marlow Hanging, October 1899

In a woods at Skirmett, near Great Marlow, the body of William Lawrence, a blacksmith, was found hanging in a tree by his apron strings. He went missing five months ago and his corpse had been stripped clean of flesh. He left a widow and a large family to fend for themselves, and the whole affair is a complete mystery.

11/ Marlow Drowning, August 1892

12/ Marlow Weir Drowning, July 1895

13/  Stone Asylum Death,  July 1870.

14/ Denham Murders,  July 22nd 1870 (Murdered Seven Family Members)

15/ Denham Murders,  July 23rd 1870

16/ Execution of Denham Murderer,  August 9th 1870

17/  Two Men Die in a Well, Chalfont St. Giles,  3rd February 1866 (Useless fact- Actor Lewis Collins lived at Mapes Farmhouse in Chalfont!)

 Thursday, February 8th, 1866  (The Inquest)

18/  Con Artist at Princes Risborough,  June 1866  (Imposture- pretending to be someone else in order to deceive others)

19/ Case of Rabies, Milton Keynes.  October 1866

 

20/ Poacher Killed near Aylesbury,  October 1866.

21/  Fatal Fire at Aylesbury Prison,  February 1904.

22/   Fatality on Bletchley Railway.   November 1880

1/ Bromley, May 1885 (Attempted Double Murder)

Crystal Palace Suicides

2/ December 1898

The body of a fully-dressed man in a sitting position was found on the grounds of Crystal Palace. The guy who saw him went to wake him up, shook him, but he didn’t wake up. He found a policeman who sent for medical help, but he was dead as a dodo. The corpse had a name; it was George Nunn, a gardener from Sydenham, who had been gone for at least two days. (Poison, Gunshot?)

3/ May 1867

43-year-old Thomas Jennings was with his work-mates picking through the metal of Crystal Palace, which had recently been destroyed by a tremendous fire. He went to the north water-tower, climbed it, waved his cap in the air and shouted “Goodbye chaps!” and threw himself off. You can see one of the tower’s either side of the Palace in the above postcard (I think!) He hit the ground with a thud, as do most things from 200 feet up in the air, and the post-mortem afterwards revealed hardly a single bone in his body that wasn’t smashed to bits. He had been depressed of late often telling his wife that “he felt something was going to happen”. Kept your promise there Thomas!

4/ Bedlam Asylum Suicide, June 1840

A female patient at the Bedlam Lunatic Asylum named White killed herself by hanging from an iron pipe by the strings on her straitjacket. Bedlam has an exceptional record as far as suicides are concerned, with only eight in twenty-five years.

5/ Bethlem Hospital Suicide, July 1847

An inmate of Bethlem Hospital was deemed to be well enough to be employed in the laundry department. This was a poor judgement on someone’s part because they dived into a huge vat of boiling water as soon as the attendants were distracted.

6/ Penge Station Suicide, August 1889

A woman was waiting for a train one evening at Penge Station on the London, Chatham and Dover Railway when she plunged forward as the express train came into the station. The body was a grisly spectacle and was badly mangled, with her head being found yards away from the trunk. Mr John Browning identified it as the body of his daughter, Susan Maria Browning a 32-year-old from Sydenham. A relative in the family had died recently and she had been enveloped in depression and this is the supposed motive for her suicide.

7/ Penge Station Suicide, May 1871

At Penge Station on the Chatham and Dover Railway, Mrs Phillis Naldrett, who was a widow from the Norfolk Hotel in Bognor, killed herself. She had been lodging in Penge and has just come out of an asylum after a lengthy visit. She walked on to the platform when she was alone, even neglecting to buy a ticket; and just as the Chatham train rolled in she jumped between the first and second carriage on to the buffers, where a wheel passed over her body. The brakes were slammed on and she was put on the London Victoria train, to be whisked off to hospital. Unfortunately, she died a couple of days later from her injuries, which were broken ribs, broken arm, and a fractured shoulder.

8/ Bromley Bridge Disaster, December 1882

9/ Blockhouse Station Suicide, Beckenham, June 1890

J.Lathom, of Glenthorne, Queen Adelaide Road, Penge was killed on the level-crossing near the new Blockhouse Station at Beckenham. The driver said that the gentleman ran across the tracks and throw himself in front of the train. He slammed on the brakes but finally stopped 200 yards down the line, far too late to prevent his death. The body was mutilated beyond recognition with his legs barely being connected to the rest of his body.

10/ Bromley, December 1905 (Corpse Found)

An inquest was held on the headless corpse of an unknown man found in the River Thames, just off Bromley. Post-mortem states that he had been in the water for at least eighteen months, but due to the state of the body it was nearly impossible to say how he met his death, or even if foul play was involved at all. A verdict of “Found dead” was returned.

11/ Plough Hill Road, Bromley Common, August 1889

The dead body of a man with black curly hair, and dressed in an Irish tweed suit, was discovered in a wood near Plough Hill Road beyond Bromley Common by a man taking a short-cut. It was decomposed, and when they tried to lift it to take it to the mortuary, the head fell off. The police surgeon thinks that it’s been there three months as a rough estimate, which would make them think that he went in there on Easter Monday and died in a drunken stupor. The road nearby is very well used. The man’s face was totally eaten away by vermin and insects. He had a silver watch and more than £2 in money on his person, so robbery was out of the question. The verdict- “Found Dead”.

12/ Bromley March 1867 (Child Neglect)

13/ Anerley Park, Anerley May 1898 (No.13 and No 15 are still at Anerley Park)

This is definitely one of the saddest stories on this website. A girl of weak intellect went missing on the streets of London, and police and public were keeping an eye out for her. Meanwhile, Mr Morgan, of 15 Anerley Park was looking around his garden when he heard some moans and groans coming from his neighbours shed. Morgan knew that his neighbour was out of the country and had been for a couple of months, so he popped and had a look at what was making the noise. In the shed he found a teenage girl slumped on the floor, semi-conscious, and next to her was a dead baby. He ran to get Dr Carter, and he was unable to do anything for her as she was nearly dead. Police came, but before they got there the poor lass had died, and both the bodies were taken to Penge mortuary. Later on, she was identified as Minnie Eliza Bailey, from Victoria Road, South Norwood. She wasn’t quite eighteen years of age, and she liked to roam and float about the city, rather than stay in one place. This vanishing act had gone on for the last three weeks, and she was painfully thin and emaciated and would have been weak from lack of nourishment. It is a minor miracle that she got into the shed in the first place as she scaled a seven-foot wall while heavily pregnant then stayed in the shed for a number of days, then gave birth. The lack of food, her feeble condition, and the blood loss from the pregnancy, she stood little chance of survival. (Where is she buried?)      RIP Minnie.

14/ Anerley Road, Penge August 1882

Norwood police are trying to find out the identity and address of a man whose dead corpse was discovered in an empty house in Anerley Road in Penge. He left no clues to his identity and post-mortem results will hopefully reveal how he died. This is just down the road from where another mysterious discovery occurred a few days ago. (Coincidence/Connected?)

15/ Bromley Murder, August 1889

16/ Prospect Place, St Leonards Row, Bromley, December 1875

The mutilated remains of a child were found at Prospect Place, St Leonards Row. Elizabeth Lewis had been charged with having murdered the child. At 8-30 one evening, the tenants at No 11 Prospect Place heard a strange noise coming from an upstairs room, and when checked it turned out to be a cat chewing on the arm and hand of the dismembered child. It was shooed away, and the limb was taken to Poplar Police Station. Inspector Vamals was on duty and in an amazing piece of police deduction, the cat was detained at the police station and not fed, the theory being that when they let it go, it would go back and feast on the infant. The head was found at No 4, in a rubbish heap in a cellar.

17/ Kent House Station Suicide, Beckenham, August 1896

18/ Bethlehem Asylum Suicide,  September 1867

Miss Mary Anne Cornwall was from a decent family in Brighton, but she had become suicidal and was suffering from religious mania. Her family were alarmed at her actions as she had twice attempted to jump from high buildings, so on June 1st,  she was taken to Bethlehem Asylum. She tried to kill herself while there and shouted at the attendant “If you don’t kill me or give me arsenic, I’ll do away with myself”. On Thursday she set herself alight and was badly burned and charred on her right side of the body. As her dress was burning she said: “Let me die; the pain of my body is nothing to the pain of my mind”. She died of her burns on Friday. Cornwall had stolen the matches from an attendants room, then self-immolated.

19/ Burnt Ash Lane, Lee, May 1871 (Body in a Garden)

In a pond at the rear of a cottage in Burnt Ash Lane, the body of 27-year-old Anne Surridge was discovered. The preceding morning, a young woman was found in a lane in the same area of Kent, and she was badly mutilated but was rushed to Guy’s Hospital. At different intervals, she was heard to say “Do not kill me outright Emily”, which could be the deceased. This was not the case. Surridge’s parent’s lived in Bird and Bush Road, Peckham, and also of Camberwell New Road. She was working for a family in New Bromley but due to her not sleeping at nights and not being very good at her work the mistress had written to the mother asking her to take her home. The mother went to get her on Wednesday, but she had disappeared a couple of hours previously and she wasn’t seen again until they fished her body out of the pond. Postmortem revealed that she had drowned herself,  and letters in her possession indicate that there was insanity in the family genes.

20/ Chislehurst Outrage, August 1892

21/ Belvedere Murder, June 1880 (Actually in Bexley, but put it in Bromley!)

 

22/ Crystal Palace (Death at a Dinner Party)   July 1870

23/  An Imprisoned Wife,  August 1904. (Husband Locks Up Wife, Housekeeper Takes Her Place)

24/  Death of a Bethlem Patient, Bethlem Hospital.   December 1880

25/  Double Murder at St Mary Cray, near Chislehurst.  1st November 1880 (Five Bells, St Mary Cray, 98 High Street. Can’t find it anywhere; demolished now I presume)

Tuesday, 9th November 1880. (Double Murder)

Joseph Waller was sent to Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital in 1881. He was an inmate for the next forty years plus, until his death in April 1923.

1/ Clifton Suspension Bridge Suicide Survivor, May 1885

Sarah Ann Henley decided to leap off the bridge after being dumped by her sweetheart. She made the jump off the 300-foot bridge and survived to tell the tale! Her massive Victorian dress became a sort of parachute and she hit the soft silt of the Avon below. She was badly injured but remains in hospital. She got her brother to visit the ex-boyfriend and asked him to visit her. Her father was furious with the boy and went to the railway station where he worked and beat him to a pulp. Fellow workmates never intervened nor did the police, probably thinking he deserved a good kicking.(Did she live?)

2/ Clifton Suspension Bridge Suicide,  September 1869

Victorian Bristol’s suicide hot-spot and this is when a young man placed his hat, coat and waistcoat at the side, climbed the edge, hung on for a bit, then let go and fell the 300-feet down into the mud bank you can see in the above picture. He was only a slight fella and mid-twenties, shabby clothes and a few coppers on him. The body was not identified.

3/ Clifton Suspension Bridge Suicide, May 1866

I bet over the years, hundreds have thrown themselves off this bridge, every time I found a story about Bristol, it involved the bridge. This story was about a Mr George Green, of Green & Co, shipbuilders, when he vaulted the barrier and dropped into the Avon below. He hadn’t thought about it very carefully as he forgot the tide was out, so he catapulted into silt and mud. He left a wife and two kids.

4/ Clifton Suspension Bridge  Suicide, January 1883

The next suicide was a smart gentleman who was seen by several workers on a barge in the Avon. The body fell with such a smack on the mud bank below, that it took several men to extract it; it also fell near the barge whose occupants were watching the guy jump. He left identification in his pockets, and he was Samuel Cooper Dyer from Cardiff. (This was the nineteenth suicide on the bridge since it opened in 1864).

5/ Clifton Suspension Bridge Suicide, August 1887

A man leapt over the railing (you can see above, sort of!) and precipitated himself to the river below. It was high-tide and some men took it to Bedminster Mortuary, where it was identified as that of a young lad named Miller, a decorator by trade. (This was the twenty-fourth suicide since it opened)

6/ Clifton Suspension Bridge Suicide, December 1885

A man seems to have gone unnoticed in his leap of death, apart from a workman named James Gully who was next to the Port & Pier Station heard “Oh Dear!” and “Oh my!” as he came hurtling towards the river. The old myth that you die of fright before you hit the ground has been shattered, plus the first tale on the board where Sarah Ann Henley survived her attempt. This man seems to have gone under the water, bobbed up, and drifted down-stream. The man’s hat and stick were recovered and they had “T.D.” stamped on the silver band. (Was he identified?).

7/ Clifton Bridge Suicides (Facts & Figures) 1893

The first was a Mr Green in May 1866, and since then no less than thirty-two persons have met their death by leaping from the bridge. The list shows twenty-seven men, and five women have died here in twenty-six years. This does not include the young lady who survived her fatal leap.

The only months with no suicides have been July and March, the main time being May (7), August (6), November (4) and December (4). The oldest was a coachman from Clifton, who was seventy and jumped in October 1870, and the youngest was William Talling aged nineteen, who died September 1870.

8/ Clifton Suspension Bridge, September 1896 (Throws Kids Off)

This is one of the most infamous incidents on the bridge. Charles Albert Browne threw his two children, Ruby and Elsie over the edge, a 280-300 feet drop. He was a grocer at Langmore St., Balsall Heath, Birmingham, and business was on the wane. He had worked eighteen hours a day to make ends meet, but all in vain. Mrs Browne was advised by doctors to put her husband in an asylum but she refused, saying he was a good father and never drank. One morning he just clicked and took the girls on an errand with him. They spent all day with him and around midnight went to the bridge, and lifted 3-year-old Elsie and 12-year-old Ruby over the edge into the water. Amazingly they both survived. It is believed that he intended to jump over after he’d thrown them in but suddenly changed his mind. He was arrested shortly after the cruel act.

9/ Clifton Suspension Bridge Suicide, December 1889

A man named Deedes saw a man throw himself off the bridge as he was crossing it from the Somerset side. He heard the cry of “Lord, have mercy on my soul”, and put his stick and hat on the path when Deedes quickly ran to help, the man yelled “You are too late”, and sprang over. Police were told of the situation and sent P.C. 28C down to find the body; he was lying face up in the river bank. He had a thick moustache, fair skinned, brown tweed suit on, and nice Oxford shoes. In his pocket was a letter with the name of “E.G.Pearflour” mentioned.

Later……The body was that of Mr George Henry Davies of Uckfield, Sussex. He married two years ago, and his wife since learned he had been in an asylum. He just left home a month or so ago, sent the odd letter to his missus but nothing else.

10/ Clifton Suspension Bridge Suicide, January 1890

11/ Bristol Shooting,  January 1890

12/ Pensford Hill,  August 1890 (Manslaughter)

13/ Bristol January 1917 (Hanged From Lamp-post)

William Cole was off to work at 4-30 a.m. when out of the foggy mist, he saw something hanging from a lamp-post, he got closer and saw a man hanging by a noose. He went to the nearest house to raise the alarm but was scared to cut him down.

Coroner: You found a man hanging and was afraid to cut the cord?

Cole: I should think I was

Coroner: Are we living in the 20th century?

Cole: I did not know if I was doing right or wrong

Coroner: You had better go to school again

Deceased was later identified as John Knight, shipbuilder, who had depression. The coroner said he’d been hanging there for one or two hours without anybody cutting him down, and had he been so his life might have been saved.

14/ Bristol Baby Farm August 1899

A Bristol baby farm was investigated by magistrates and found to be shocking child neglect as part of the operation.

Seventy-year-old Sarah Leonard, along with her three daughters, and husband of one of them as well were the main instigators of this operation. An N.S.P.C.C. inspector said that the neglect shown to the children was unprecedented as they lived in filthy conditions. One of the kids taken away by the N.S.P.C.C. died a couple of days later in a local workhouse. Two of the children were insured, so death meant cash for the family. Adverts in the local papers plus forms and letters in reply. They got £60 for two kids within a few weeks. The advert that ran was: “Refined couple would adopt a baby; Happy Christian home; Healthy Bristol suburb”. One daughter and son-in-law got off scot-free, the mother and the other two got three months prison time.

15/ Clifton Suspension Bridge Suicide, December 23rd, 1885

16/ Clifton Suspension Bridge Suicide, December 30th, 1885

17/ Frogmore Street, Bristol, July 1880 (Human Remains)

There was great excitement in the Bristol area when rumours suggested that body parts of a woman were found in a slaughter-house. A crowd had gathered to see what the hullabaloo was all about and were told by police that a human leg and arm had been discovered. When police questioned the neighbourhood they found out that they belonged to a local person’s private collection of curiosities. How they got into the slaughter-house is a mystery.

18/ Horfield Gaol May 1888

Arthur William Masters killed himself in a strange way at Horfield Gaol. He was found dead in his cell, and the post-mortem showed that he’d rammed some cloth down his throat with a wooden spoon, therefore suffocating himself. Also, it was proved that he couldn’t have done it with his hand so would have laid on the ground and pressed down against the spoon.

19/ Bristol Gaol, May 1843

Thomas Gray, an eighteen-year-old prisoner in a Bristol jail, hung himself with his handkerchief. The reason for this was the imminent sentence of transportation, and rather than being sent to Australia (which was the main choice for transportation between the 1780’s and 1860’s) he ‘d rather be dead.

20/ Clifton Suspension Bridge Suicide Survival, May 1885 ( See top of the page- Number 1. )

21/ St Vincent Cliffs Suicide, March 1850

A steamship arriving from Cork was nearing Hotwells and passengers saw two ladies on St Vincent Cliffs, and it seemed that one of them was getting the attention of the other to look at the steamer going by. Then the lady seemed to lose balance and fall down the craggy rocks, to the bottom, a distance of 300 feet. The passengers were in shock and as soon as the boat docked they went to the area where she fell taking help with them. At the base of the rocks lay a mutilated corpse, identified later as Miss Craven, a 17-year-old daughter of a solicitor. (Who was the other woman?)

22/ St Vincent Cliffs Suicide, January 1848

Edward Cox Derrick and Mark Phillips were walking near the Suspension Bridge (being built), they were looking down to the gulley and spotted something white on the rocks, on a ledge. They went down to see what it was and found the body of a man. The people in the Swiss cottage above called to them to climb back up. Men with ropes went down to recover the cadaver and several people said it was that of a Mr Thompson, of Clifton. It was taken to the house of 22, Caledonia Place, his sister’s house. Thompson kept two lodging houses (1 and 4 Princess Buildings) but stayed at his sister’s the previous night and was strange in his manner. He was up and down all night and was put back to be and even assaulted a servant who was trying to get him to his room. He ran out the kitchen door into the night and he had dressed himself beforehand. They searched for him,  but the next time they saw him was when he was dead. The verdict “Killed himself by throwing himself from St Vincent Rocks in a state of insanity”.

23/ Bristol Cemetery Suicide, October 1909

A gravedigger was digging one day, when he saw a woman near a grave, getting undressed. He went up to her to see what she up to, and she replied that she swallowed some poison, then she collapsed in a heap. Next to her hand was a bottle labelled “Salts of Lemon”. They called for medical aid, but she was dead. (Who? Where?)

24/ Bristol Child Murder, April 1885

25/ River Avon Suicide, Bristol, September 1877

The body of a young man was found in the Avon, with a stone tied to his neck and legs tied together, was that of Frederick William Lawrence, who was a sculptor by profession. He had been melancholy for a few days and his zest for life had vanished with his work in Birmingham on the Municipal buildings had been a chore. He said he was going to see his Dad in Weston-Super-Mare, but he went to the river instead. A note was left, saying:-Goodbye to all. I can’t live any longer. I feel I am going mad.”.

26/ Fishponds Station near Bristol. June 1901 (Decapitation)

Just before the 7-57 from St Philip’s was due in, a woman was pacing up and down the platform looking edgy and nervous. She asked the porter about the departure of the next train to Bath. She waited till that one arrived, then there was a blood-curdling scream as she was run over by the train. As it passed over her, the sight of her body, less the head was to be seen. Passengers and staff rushed to help but obviously too late. Her name was Sarah Porcher, wife of a banker in Bristol, and who had just moved into 4, Mendip Avenue, Causeway, Fishponds. It is not known if it was a deliberate act or an accident.

27/ Royal Hotel Suicide,  November 1887

A gentleman was found dead in his room at the Royal Hotel in Bristol. He was lying on a bed with a gun in his hand, and two shots in his body. One in his chest and the other in the forehead. Papers and letters were found, and his name is Gerstemperd Weyside, and thought to be from Forest of Dean (Gloucestershire?) Lovely name by the way! (What room? Is Hotel still there?)

28/ Bristol, May 1885

29/ Bristol Docks September 1873 (Corpse found in Hold)

Workmen were emptying the ship the “Annie Williams” of timber, which arrived a couple of weeks ago when they stumbled upon the body of a negro in the hold.How he got aboard the ship is not known, but the captain thinks he was loading the ship at one stage, and had fallen, or banged his head, was unconscious, and when he woke was miles away from land.His body was badly decomposed, which means he’d been there for weeks or even months.

30/ Rownham House near Bristol, March 1875 (Human Remains)

One of the gardeners was digging in the garden at Rownham House near Bristol when his spade hit a human skull. Further digging produced two more. The locals say the house is haunted. A medical man was in the area and performed a post-mortem on the collection of skulls. He said they were of a male, female and a child. Two had severe fractures and the third had a pistol shot in it. He also stated they had not been there more than twenty years or so. (Who were they?)

31/ Bristol Gaol Suicide, August 1857

A young lass of about 18 years of age, by the name of Hannah Pearce, killed herself by taking oxalic acid. She was only in for a minor crime of throwing a stone at a policeman and had been there a day, but she obviously couldn’t hack it in there. She’d scrawled these words “I have taken something that will send me to—-in five minutes”, and died in agony too.

32/ White Rock Copper Works, June 1837

Richard Daniel, a single 21-year-old, employed by the White Rock Works, while letting the molten copper fall into the water, for some unseen reason it exploded at the bottom of the water, causing his plank of wood to give way and he was tossed into the boiling hot liquid. He went under, then resurfaced, and his wails of pain could be heard all over the factory. His working partner also was burned but did not get immersed in the liquid. When the body was fished out it was totally bereft of any skin whatsoever, but amazingly he lived on for another twelve hours, then died in agony.

33/ Upper Berkeley Place, Bristol, May 1860 (Impaled on Railings)

About 4 p.m., a servant by the name of Elizabeth Limbrick, in the employ of Mr Scanlon, at No 5 Upper Berkeley Place, was rather precariously balancing on a window sill on the second storey up, trying to clean the windows. Another servant in the next house called to her that the milkman was there and she tried to clamber back in when she slipped and fell around thirty feet. If that wasn’t bad enough, she landed directly on some spiked railings below, four in all. Limbrick was extricated from the railings and brought indoors where a doctor said that she should be taken to the hospital. The injuries were left thigh broken, and part of the iron railing was embedded in her hip. (Did she die?)

34/ Kingswood Reformatory, December 15th, 1885

35/ Kingswood Reformatory December 22nd, 1885

36/ Clifton, Bristol October 1858 (Accidental Fall)

A vicar’s daughter from Gloucestershire, Miss Mary Richmond,18, went for a stroll on the downs of Clifton. She was seen near Lions Head Cliff, which is 300-feet high, and she appears to have been reading a book (texting in today’s world) and appears to have aimlessly stumbled over the edge. Who reads while next to a cliff? Another witness said she was gathering plants from the rocks, then fell over. She landed on the path that is next to the river bank and was barely recognisable due to horrific facial disfigurement. Ribs, arms and thighs were broken and dislocated jawbone. This is the fifth accident of the same nature in twenty odd years, yet no fence has been erected to prevent these accidents.

37/ Lawrence Hill Station Fatality, December 1907

Signalman John Parsons was on his way to work along the railway line and had just got past Lawrence Hill Station. An engine passed that way, towards Stapleton Road, and it knocked him down and killed him outright. John Phelps, the driver of the engine, told the porter, William John Faulkner, of 36, Morton Street, St George, that he’d seen a body on the track between Lawrence Hill and Stapleton Road. Police went to the spot, about 200 yards north of Easton Bridge, found 37-year-old Parsons body, minus the head.

38/ Bristol Channel Collision, February 1907

39/ Bristol Suicide, April 1892

40/ Bedminster Murder, May 1899

41/ Clifton Bridge Suicide, (Another) September 1870

 

42/  Fatal Fire at Bristol  (West Street)   April 1866.

43/ “Black Eagle” Explosion, River Avon   November 1866  (It was opposite St Vincents Parade, now  Hotwell Road, when the boiler exploded)

44/ Murder in Bristol?  January 1867  (Henry Ware and Lucy Trim had an apartment at the Balmoral Castle pub on Lower Castle Street. This is where Ware came out and hit Sinnott with a gun. Ware was sentenced to seven years penal servitude for manslaughter)

45/ Gas Poisoning at Crofts End near Bristol.  January 1904.

46/ Fatal Fire at Lawrence Hill, Bristol.  December 1905. (Wife Refuses to Leave Blind Husband)

47/ Suicide on Clifton Suspension Bridge.  June 1905

48/ Wreck of the Orianda, Bristol Channel.  February 1907 (Fourteen crew drowned)

49/  Miser’s Hoard Found in Empty House, Bedminster.   July 1907 (£100 is worth about £11,500 in 2018 money)

50/  Confession of Murder, Temple Parish, Bristol.   Monday, December 13th, 1880

Tuesday, December 14th, 1880 (The Inquest)

Yesterday an inquest was held at Bristol on the woman Thomas, for whose murder a man named Yemm, on Saturday, gave himself in custody. The medical evidence was to the effect that, although there were bruises on the body, they were not sufficient to cause death, which resulted from serious apoplexy, and a verdict to that effect was returned.

51/ The Murder of Emily Daniels.   November 4th, 1880

Tuesday, 23rd November 1880. (The Execution of William Distin)

William Joseph Distin was executed at Bristol yesterday morning for the murder of Mrs Daniels. Marwood was the executioner. Distin was so overcome that he had to be supported between two warders from the gaol to the scaffold, he had to be supplied with stimulants to prevent complete collapse.