1/ Saxony Dynamite Suicide, Germany, December 1880

In Schwarzenburg a young man enters a ballroom with a cigar in his mouth. Nothing unusual so far, until he lit it and there was a tremendous explosion and chandeliers rocked, pictures fell and bits of the young man were dispersed over the crowd. The cigar was a stick of dynamite and this was a sure-fire way to end his life. Won’t forget that night in a hurry!

2/ Lleida, Spain, (Pulls Out Own Intestines) March 1868 (Between Zaragoza and Barcelona)

A man was brought into the hospital with terrible self-inflicted injuries. He had locked the door of his room, sliced open his stomach and ripped out his intestines and proceeded to chop them to pieces and throwing them about the room. He unlocked the door, then called his wife to come to his aid. He told hospital staff that he’d had violent stomach cramps and this was his cure. He died next day.

3/ Granada Church Suicide, Spain, September 1909

During a Sunday night service, a man took out a gun and put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger. There was mass panic and church-goers began to run for the exits, they pushed and shoved each other out of the way.the men climbed the windows, breaking stained-glass and smashing icons. When everyone was out the church looked like a bomb had hit it. There were no casualties but a few women and children have life-threatening injuries. (What church?)

4/  Switzerland,  March 1879 (Chaux-de-Fonds is right on the border with France. Anybody who murdered somebody here could have been in France in ten minutes.)

 

5/ Hinterkaifeck Murders, Germany, March 1922

This is Germany’s equivalent to the Villisca Axe Murders in America, a whole family wiped out by supposedly by a lone killer.

Andreas Gruber aged sixty-three and his wife Cazilia aged seventy-two and the maid Maria Baumgartner in her mid-forties and finally the three children; Viktoria aged thirty-five, a widow; Josef, who was only two and Cazilia, seven-years-old, were the victims of a cool calculated murderer. The strange thing is about this case is that there was a sort of warning beforehand, inasmuch as the fact that Andreas saw footprints in the snow suggesting that someone was scanning the property first. Keys went missing and footsteps were heard in the attic, so was someone already in the house to start with?

Rather unluckily Maria the maid only started work on the same day she was slain, the other maid left rather quickly saying the place was haunted. The really freaky aspect of these murders is that after going around slaying them, the killer stayed on for a few days. He (or she) helped themselves to the bread, cheese and meat, they lit a fire (smoke was seen by neighbours from the chimney) and continued as if nothing had happened by feeding the cows. For the person who had just killed four adults and two kids, it was a sort of weekend break for them! (Unsolved still after nearly a hundred years)

6/ Schonewalde, Konigsberg, Germany, (Triple Murder/Suicide) December 1882

A shocking tragedy is reported from the village of Schonewalde near Konigsberg. On Thursday night a woman of that place, in a fit of insanity threw her three children into a deep well at the back of her dwelling-house. She then set fire to the outbuildings and afterwards herself leapt into the well. The next morning the four corpses were taken out.

7/ Sicily, Italy, May 1884 (This article mentions a group of murderer’s in Sicily. Who could that be? Mafia?)

8/ Milan Cathedral Suicides, August 1868

 

At Milan a few days ago, a woman precipitated herself from the front of the Cathedral and was killed instantly. A young man of eighteen, a lithographer, who was passing, immediately entered the building saying he wished to see the spot from which the woman had thrown herself and exclaiming “There is a woman who has freed herself from all annoyance” and ascended the tower. Having written a few lines to his brothers on the stone parapet with a pencil, he jumped off and met with a sudden death. In falling he knocked down and seriously injured a Prussian Major, Count Henckel, who was passing at the time.

9/ Vienna, Austria, April 1866 (Quintuple Suicide)

Not very often you see those two words next to each other, as five people all deciding to end their days, by poisoning themselves, it seems odd to most but this is continental Europe and I noticed that the suicides and murders are more dramatic and seemingly more theatrical. The instigator of the suicides was M.Tuvora a 50-year-old Austrian entrepreneur of the railways’ system. He left work one day saying that he had to attend to some business and let his clerk get on with the paperwork and then went home to dinner. He had five children in total and spared the youngest two, by sending them to his fathers-in-law. The weird thing is, that the other three stayed to join in this suicide pact. They all had dinner, then he went for a walk with his 35-year-old wife, then went back home. The servant, who had dropped the kids off at the relative’s house, tried to get in but found all doors locked tight. The police forced the door open and were met with a truly horrendous sight. They were all at the dining-room table, some on the floor and with half-empty teacups on the table. M.Tuvora was an extremely unhappy man and the others said that if he was going to kill himself they would go with him.

10/ Flushing Railway Deaths (Vlissingen) Netherlands, June 1899

A fatal accident occurred here when owing to the failure of the pneumatic brake, when a mail train ran through the waiting-room, shattering walls and doors. Two guards were killed and the two drivers were severely hurt.

11/ Grand Hotel, Stockholm, Sweden, (Mass Panic) September 25th, 1885

12/ Grand Hotel, Stockholm, Sweden September 30th, 1885

13/ Mulligen, Switzerland, April 1885

The village of Mulligen, in the Swiss canton of Aargau, has been entirely destroyed by fire.

14/ Geneva Murder/Suicide, Switzerland, August 1885

A woman named Gentel was murdered in Geneva on Sunday evening by a labouring man named Tournier, who himself committed suicide immediately afterwards, in front the corpse of his victim. The motive alleged for the crime is that the woman had refused an offer of marriage from Tournier.

15/ Navarre, Spain, (Wolves Kill Three) January 1882

In the clipping, it says this occurred in Uvarre in Spain, but I cannot find it. Presumably, they meant Navarre. The Christmas Eve service in Navarre (Uvarre?) was taking place when a pack of wolves entered the church and did not quit until they had killed three and seriously injured another five of the congregation.

16/ Vienna, Austria, May 1885 (Execution Cock-Up)

17/ The Crossword Puzzle Murder, East Germany- 1970’s

The Crossword Puzzle Murder is, I hate to use the word, favourite of all the murders I’ve read about. I normally like the unsolved crimes, such as Dyatlov Pass, D.B.Cooper, Escape from Alcatraz, Hinterkaifeck, Servant-Girl Annihilator, Bella in Wych Elm, Charles Walton Murder in Warwickshire, etc etc. This one was solved but the sheer man-power involved was incredible. Don’t forget they had no hi-tech computers helping them or DNA testing. It was just good, honest policework that helped them solve this. The body of a young boy was found dismembered in a suitcase by the side of a railway line. It had been thrown off a passing train by the perpetrator. It was determined that the boy had been molested but with no DNA in those days, it was pointless. The one clue they did have was a sample of his hand-writing, as he had left a filled in crossword puzzle on the newspaper that he lined the suitcase with. The police, along with Stasi help.went round houses and got the citizens to give an example of their handwriting. They then searched police records and emptied the bins and rifled through tons of rubbish, for months on end. Eventually, they got a match and arrested the man for the boy’s murder.

18/ Morges Murder, near Geneva, October 1885

A terrible tragedy was enacted on Monday at Morges near Geneva. A man literally hacked his wife to pieces, then saturated the bed with petroleum, set fire to it and attempted to escape. Overcome by fumes, however, he sank down and was suffocated. The house was saved from destruction by the neighbours.

19/ Malta (Ship Collision) April 1899

An agent from Malta telegraphed yesterday that the British steamer, Kingswell, has been in a collision with a Greek coaster. The former vessel is uninjured, the latter sank. There were forty-nine persons on board, only four of whom were saved.

20/ Leyden, Netherlands, (Maria Swanenburg) April 25th, 1885

Netherlands April 27th, 1885 (The poisoner was Maria Swanenburg, suspected of ninety murders, twenty-seven died, with several crippled for life. Found Guilty on April 25th, 1885. Died in prison in 1915.

21/ Hamburg, Germany, October 1885

A four-storey house in course of erection at the corner of a street leading out of the Specks Platz, collapsed at five o’clock this afternoon, burying several persons in the ruins. Up to seven o’clock this evening, two dead bodies have been recovered and two men severely injured had been extricated. It is believed that about six others are still under the debris. (What was the death toll?)

22/ Hamburg, Germany, November 1893 (Suicide from Church Tower)

The English church in the Zeughaus Markt at Hamburg, was celebrated with a special service, which attracted a huge congregation. During this service, the sexton climbed the tower and then committed suicide by plunging off the top of it. His body was smashed to atoms as he hit the pavement below. Friends and relatives said that he had been acting strangely of late.

(Is the English church still there?)

23/ Near Rome, Italy, June 1899 (Fall from Balloon)

During some military captive-balloon manoeuvres near Rome, a sudden gust of wind broke the ropes, which were held by forty soldiers. The balloon ascended with great rapidity, with a soldier named Vacca hanging to the rope. When passing over the Tiber the unfortunate soldier fell from a great height and was dashed to pieces on the bank.

24/ Corfu, Greece, January 1890 (Fatal Pub Brawl)

25/ Vienna, Austria, August 1892 (Child Suicide)

A sad case of child suicide is announced from Vienna. In consequence of a beating which he received from his mother, a little boy named Nowotny aged seven threw himself from the fourth floor of a house in the Landstrasse district of the city into the courtyard below, where he was picked up mortally injured. He was conveyed to the hospital but expired shortly afterwards.

26/ Spain/Portugal, (Train Crash) October 1885 (Can’t find this!)

This morning the express train from Lisbon to Madrid ran off the line while crossing a bridge over the River Sever near the Spanish frontier and was precipitated into the river. Some of the passengers were killed and several injured. No further details have been received up to the present.

27/ Namur Triple Murder, Belgium, October 1897

Three persons were yesterday found murdered in a house on the road from the Bois de Villers to Arbre near Namur.They were an old man named Francois Piot aged eighty-four; his daughter, a widow named Biet aged fifty; and the latter’s daughter aged twenty-four. The interior of the house was in great disorder, with robbery appearing to be the motive of the crime.

28/ France/Italy Avalanches, January 1885

29/ Braunschweig Factory Fire, (Brunswick) May 1899

A large warehouse at Brunswick, belonging to Messrs Karstadt and Company, was totally destroyed by fire. Five girls perished in the flames. Several persons were injured, one of whom has since died.

30/ St Gallen, Switzerland, (Anarchist Suicide) May 1885

The anarchist who in February last, addressed a threatening letter to the Federal Government, threatening to blow up the Federal Palace and giving details of the projected plot, has hanged himself in prison. The young man named William Huft, a native of Baden and a hairdresser by trade. Huft, who had only just been arrested, refused to answer the questions addressed to him. He was conveyed to the gaol at St Gallen where he almost immediately hanged himself.

31/ Wiesbaden, Germany, January 1890 (Death of an Englishman in Germany)

The body of a well-dressed and gentlemanly looking figure, probably an Englishman, has been found on the railway near Wiesbaden Station. Four pounds in English money were found in the pockets of the deceased man’s clothing. There were no other means of identification and the circumstances of his death are unknown.

32/ Lausanne, Switzerland, March 1885

33/ Klagenfurt Avalanche, Austria, January 1885

While twenty peasants were driving to market at Klagenfurt on Saturday, an avalanche fell fro a hill and overwhelmed them. Efforts were made to rescue the unfortunate men, but up to last night without success.

34/ Kassel, Germany, November 1885

Lieshe, the man lying under sentence of death for the murder of Police-Councillor Rumpff at Frankfurt-on-Main, was beheaded at eight o’clock yesterday morning by the Berlin executioner. He protested his innocence and met his fate with composure.

35/  Recuerja, Spain, (Rocks Crush Eleven)  March 1899

A telegram from Albacete announces that some rocks overhanging the village of Reuerja suddenly fell today, destroying ten houses. Eleven persons are known to have been killed but up to the present, only two bodies have been recovered.

36/ Samos, Greece, March 1899 (British Naval Boat Sinks)

37/ Berlin Clown Suicide, Germany November 1867

Agreat, the well-known clown from America, called the “Man-Fly”, killed himself at Berlin in front of 2000 spectators by firing a revolver in his mouth, while he was hanging upside-down from the ceiling of the theatre by his feet. (Anybody know any more?)

38/ Cartagena, Spain, January 1888 (Suicide by Dynamite…in a Theatre!)

A telegram from Cartagena states that a broker committed suicide while sitting in a stall at the theatre. Not unusual in itself, but the fact he did it with a stick of dynamite suggests what I said at the beginning, that the continental Europeans either murdered or killed themselves with a bit more panache. He put the dynamite next to his head and the end results were obvious. He was blown to bits with shards of his skull landing on the stage. The sheer force of the blast extinguished the gas in the theatre and the audience scrambled to get out.

39/ Stadt Park Suicide, Vienna, June 1884

In the lovely Stadt Park in Vienna, a suicidal man decided to kill himself in the park, so he hid himself and then packed his pockets with paper doused in petrol. When he was found he was fully ablaze, but they managed to extinguish the human fire-ball and whisk him off to the hospital, where he died shortly after admission. Identification was impossible due to the state of the blackened corpse. (In two days Vienna seems to have become the suicide capital of Europe, with ten such cases. An eighty-four-year-old widow, a policeman and several girls and boys have also ended it all.)

40/ Geneva, Switzerland, (Quintuple Murder) May 1885

41/ Pomerania (Germany/Poland) (Hotel Murders) September 1884

This tells of a grisly discovery being made in a hotel in Zurzig?, Pomerania. (Gdansk is the biggest city but was known as Danzig in German) In the hotel cellar, were six corpses about a foot underground. A merchant named Furstenburg vanished about three years ago, was one of the bodies. Two workmen arrested for his murder spent nearly a year in gaol. The other cadavers were those of traders. The ex-proprietor of the hotel went to America and police are trying to get hold of him. (What Hotel?)

42/ Peralada, Spain, July 1896 (Eight Children Thrown in Well)

A serial child murderer was on the loose in the village of Peralada in Spain. Unusually, it turned out to be a woman named Rufo, who had somehow coaxed twelve children to her house and then callously thrown them in a well in her garden. This was all in one go! Four of the kids saw what she doing and managed to jump out of a window, straight into the street below, with three of them badly injured in the fall. Rufo saw the kids escape and she knew then that the game was up, so she threw herself into the well and plummeted to the bottom. Police theorize that she had a sudden fit of insanity.

43/ Milan, Italy, July 1893 (Four Sisters Suicide)

A well-off widow named Abendana died a week ago, leaving her four daughters aged eighteen to twenty-two, mourning the loss of their beloved mother. They seem to have made a decision to go and join their mother by committing suicide all together. They shut themselves away in a room, lit a pan of charcoal and let nature take its course by letting the fumes slowly asphyxiate them. When they never came down the rooms upstairs were checked and the locked one was forced open and there they lay. A letter was left, signed by the four women, saying that they couldn’t live without their mother and killed themselves so that they could be with her again.

44/ Straubing/Simbach, Bavaria May 1899

45/ Rhine Falls Suicide, Schaffhausen, Switzerland, May 1840

Mention Swiss waterfalls and you tend to go for the Reichenbach Falls where Sherlock Holmes met Moriarty, where they both plunged off the edge. Well, that’s what I thought. The Rhine Falls are Switzerland’s Niagara and it was here that a chap from Zurich went to kill himself. Not by jumping off them and drowning in millions of gallons of water, but first, he went to the water below the Falls, about waist-high, then pulled the trigger. It misfired so he coolly went to the shore put in a new cap, then waded out and shot himself in the temple.

46/ Bethanien Hospital Murder/Suicide, Berlin, March 1896  Still there!

A shocking discovery was made by a member of staff at the Bethanien Hospital in Berlin, when the lifeless corpse of a nurse was found in one of the rooms. A few feet away, was the house-porter hanging on a rope, who was cut down straight away but was found to be quite dead. Nobody can assign any reason for this act. (I’m guessing he killed her out of jealousy, then hung himself)

47/ Brixlegg Church Suicide, Austria December 1872

The sexton of the Austrian village of Brixlegg, J.Turner, used to say to people that he would die in the steeple, so fond was he of the church and the place in general. The vicar of the parish died and he had been there for thirty-seven years, exactly the same time as Turner had been there. He became very despondent and he clearly missed the old priest. Turner was also the bell-ringer at Brixlegg and when the villagers hadn’t heard the tolling of the bells, they became worried. Next morning while on their way to mass they saw Turner hanging from the cross on top of the steeple.(Type in Brixlegg church- you’ll see how high it is)

48/ Stromboli, Italy, (Shipwreck) June 1885 (Now has a population of about 500)

49/ Seville, Spain, March 1862 (Spanish Inquisition Dungeon)

While workmen were digging a well at Seville in Spain, they found some steps which led down to a doorway. They forced it open and found themselves in a vault, which was held up by six pillars. At the base of these were four mummified corpses, attached to them by chains and one of them had monk’s attire on. The clothes had decayed somewhat but looked as though they were from the 1700’s. It is believed that this was a room used by the Inquisition as a dungeon. (Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!) They appear to have been starved to death as torture.

50/ Berlin Double Suicide, Germany August 1858

Two young lasses killed themselves at Berlin in a suicide pact. Eighteen-year-old Ida Klaus, a shoemaker’s daughter, used to work in a cigarette factory but hadn’t worked there for quite a while. She told her friend aged sixteen that she didn’t want to burden her father, so she would kill herself. The friend said she would go with her. They went to Klaus’s fathers’ house and tied a rope around themselves, put on a blindfold and then jumped from the third storey of the house. They were both killed immediately.

51/ Canary Islands/Portugal (Loss of Treasure) February 1885

52/ Palace Theatre of Varieties Fatality, Berlin,  December 1908

An awful accident occurred at the Palace Theatre of Varieties in Berlin, to an artiste named Velik, who died as a result. Part of her act involved a spectacular “Death Leap” which entailed her going from a platform which was level with the top gallery and dropping into a chute, then sliding down to the floor. Velik had performed this part of her act hundreds of times before and never had any type of mishap, but she missed the chute and landed head-first onto the floor. She died shortly afterwards, never regaining consciousness.

53/ Weiss near Graz, Austria, October 1850 (A Hundred Burn to Death)

I can’t find a village called Weiss or find anything about the mass casualties of this tragic event. The village itself was also known as “Our Saviour in the Meadow”, and hundreds used to come here as a place of pilgrimage. The pilgrims had stopped for a rest and to get some sleep. A fire broke out while they slept in a hay-loft with about two hundred people in there at the time. It was estimated that approximately half of them died in the fire, which started more fires as a domino effect took hold. Half the village was burnt down and there were more casualties as well. (How many died?/Where is the village?)

54/ Corunna, Spain, (A.Coruna-Extreme North-West of Spain) November 1885

55/ Frankfurt Zoological Gardens, Germany, June 1891 (Suicide in Bear-Pit)

A singular suicide was committed by a young woman in a bear pit at the Frankfurt Zoological Gardens. The zoo-keepers saw the woman in the bear-pit but flatly refused to shoot the beast, saying they had authority to kill such a valuable animal. They farted around while the bear continued to maul the woman to death and in the end, they threw some hot water on it. It released her but she had been in there for around 45 minutes and was now dead. Attorneys are looking at possibly suing the zoo for not shooting the bear when they could have saved a life.

56/ Bern, Switzerland, December 1880 (President-Fridolin Anderwert Suicide)

If you think that the media are vicious hyena’s, here in 21st Century England, then try the Swiss press in the late 19th Century, when they managed to make the new President kill himself due to nasty slanderous remarks. Fridolin Anderwert was a hefty chap and the press regularly commented on his eating habits. They also told of how he used to go into gay brothels. He imagined that his enemies were trying to kill him, so you can see that all these rumours and conjecture were making him depressed. The relatively young, only fifty-two-years old, President of the Swiss Confederation had had enough and on Christmas Day, 1880, he walked across to the “Kleine Schanze”, a park near the Parliament in Bern and blew out his brains. He left a suicide letter behind and one poignant sentence says it all.-“They want a victim, they shall have it”.

57/ Kummer Hotel Triple Suicide, Vienna, Austria June 1874

Three ladies checked into the Kummer Hotel in Vienna, a mother and her two daughters. Next day they went for a stroll, then returned for something to eat and drink and then went to their room. As hotel staff were doing their duties, several gunshots rang out from the direction of the ladies’ room. The door was bust open and on the floor were the three women, all with a pistol in their hand and blood coming from their skulls. Later on, they were identified as Madame Gyorey, the wife of a Hungarian tradesman who was in financial ruin and her two daughters. They wore no jewellery as it had probably been sold or pawned and only had a few pence in loose change in the mother’s purse.

58/ Holz-Markt Disaster, Cologne, Germany July 1885

59/ Berlin, (Child Ripper) Germany, December 1894

A horrendous murder was committed in Berlin by an out of work shoemaker, name unknown. It was at nine p.m. one evening when a 6-year-old girl was out playing with her brother and another lad. Out of the blue, a man turns up and asks the boys to go and fetch some gin, which they did and they all had a swig. Then he told them to go and buy some sweets and he gave them some money. They left the girl alone with him and they were seen to go off somewhere. It was near to the garden of the Nazareth Church. When the boys went home, a little bit tipsy and minus the little girl, the parents became alarmed and searched the area for her. While they were in the square near the church, a scream was heard. On reaching the place they found a man standing over the nude corpse of the girl, with her lower regions torn open, Ripper-style, along with a broken nose and with her mouth stuffed with pebbles to keep her quiet. (Who was this child murderer?)

60/ Prenzlau, Germany, October 1895 (Six Murders)

Prenzlau is in the north-eastern corner of Germany near the Polish border. A man was up in court here, accused of the murder of six persons- the wife, the mother, brother-in-law, brother-in-law’s son, his governess and an apprentice. The man accused of these heinous crimes is a blacksmith, by the name of Springstein (not Bruce!). He poisoned all of them with strychnine. There is another murder that he supposedly committed and that was his own father, whom he drowned by holding his head under the water. (I trust he got the death sentence?)

61/ Venice Triple Suicide, Italy,  November 1883

62/ Ottensheim, Austria, June 1882 (Double Suicide at Ex-Lovers Castle)

A tragic double suicide occurred at Ottenheim, to a French actress, Miss Marie Damain and her close friend and colleague, Miss Aline Renneville. Renneville followed Damain around Europe, while she performed to exclusive audiences. Miss Damain was not a stage actress but instead chose to do Embassy balls and acting in private houses for the wealthy gentry. A couple of years ago they both ended up in Vienna and Damain was to perform at the French Embassy. A young count was a great admirer and the two struck up a relationship. His family was against the match and they had to break up, due to pressure exerted by his family. Then she found out she was pregnant and she gave birth to the child, but when she asked the count if they could be a couple again for the sake of the baby, her pleas were ignored. After this, she wanted to commit suicide and wished to do it in style. The two women made their way to the Chateau of Ottensheim, the home of the count’s father, crept into the grounds and both killed themselves on a bed of roses in his garden. A servant discovered the two bodies the following morning. Letters found at the hotel, explained everything that had happened and also says that her faithful friend said she wanted to die with her, such was the bond between them.

63/ Westphalia Murder, Germany December 1885

64/ Naples, Italy, May 1863 (Guillotine Suicide)

A Frenchman living in Italy rented a house near the Hotel La Gran Brettagna, on the road to Qui si Sana, close to Castellamare. He was an eccentric chap, to say the least, and spent endless hours pottering about making some sort of machinery. Nobody knew exactly what it was he was building as he wouldn’t let them in his house. One night, a heavy thud was heard coming from his premises but it was ignored as he was always messing about and had such unusual habits. Nobody saw him the next day and then police were sent for. They knocked on the door but got no reply, so they entered by forcing the door. The policemen who entered first screamed out at the sight that appeared before them. A guillotine was standing in a doorway, with the blade down and the Frenchman’s head on the other side of the room. The endless knocking and banging, was him building his suicide machine upstairs.

65/ Austrian Alps Fall, February 1885

66/ Berlin, Germany, June 1891 (Romantic Suicide)

The gorgeous daughter of Lieutenant Rummelsburg, Miss Helene Hortung, killed herself “Cinderella style” at midnight, running from a ballroom. She fled the scene, down the road with half a dozen of her friends trying to catch up with her, but she made it to the lake first and plunged into the water. Two men jumped in to rescue her but by this time she had sunk to the bottom, probably due to the weight of the ball-gown. The reason for this theatrical performance?  Well, her fiance and she had an argument and she ran off shouting that she was going to drown herself. Silly cow!

67/ Diano Arentino, Italy, September 1894 (Female Duel) (Near the French border)

Typical Italian tale of a man seeing another woman behind their backs. The two women in question though loved the man but didn’t know he was two-timing them. Eventually, it all came out in the open and the women developed a hatred for each other, so much in fact, that they decided on a duel to see which one would get their man. They met one day and chose knives for the duel. The two girls are only eighteen and twenty years old. When they met, the eighteen-year-old rushed at her love rival and stabbed the 20-year-old in the heart. A sudden pang of remorse hit her and realizing that she had murdered her, pulled the knife out her chest and immediately slit her own throat with the weapon. The pair were found dead, side by side, the teenager with the knife in her hand.

68/ Geneva Murder/Suicide, Switzerland, March 1885

69/ Berlin, Germany, June 1894 (Quadruple Murder/Double Suicide)

Karl Seeger was a successful painter who had accumulated a large fortune, but he had invested it in certain ventures and he might as well have flushed all his cash down the toilet. He lost the vast majority of his fortune and he and his wife brooded over their situation, which had put the family at near starvation. In a bizarre suicide pact they thought the only way out, and to save the prospect of poverty, was to kill the kids and then suicide. Rudolph aged nineteen and Bruno aged thirteen, ten-year-old Martin and Elizabeth aged seven, were given poison in some liquor and then to make doubly sure they hanged them. Mr and Mrs Seeger then sat down and took a dose of the poison, dying near the children they had callously killed.

70/ Starnberg Lake Suicide, near Munich, Germany, July 1914

Beautiful Lake Starnberg, over twenty-two square miles, was the scene of a very unusual suicide in 1914. Frau Von Der Heydt, whose husband was a well-known artist, was residing in a rented villa on the bank of this gorgeous lake. She asked a neighbour if her two daughters, aged ten and twelve, would like to go with her for a ride on the lake in a row-boat. The weather looked a bit dodgy, with storm-clouds gathering, but they rowed out on the calm waters about half a mile from the shore. Frau Von Der Heydt rose up and started taking her clothes off, then took a swig from a bottle, then to the horror of the two girls jumped into the lake and disappeared underwater. The two girls were in shock; shaking and barely able to talk, but some fisherman rowed them to shore where they explained what Frau Von Der Heydt had just done. Her body was washed up later that same day.

71/ Groscavallo Avalanche Adventure, Italy, February 1885

72/ Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain, June 1896 (Body in a Suitcase)

Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands was the scene of an appalling discovery. Washed up on the beach was a massive suitcase, which when it was undone, was found to contain a smaller wooden box. Rather like a set of Russian dolls, there was a zinc box inside this one, which was waterproof and the contents of that was the body of a smartly dressed, beautiful young lady, adorned with expensive jewellery. I say she was gorgeous, I meant if she hadn’t got a huge gash in her eyes and her eyes plucked out. The woman was estimated to be late teens/early twenties, brunette, wearing a white bodice and black dress emblazoned with little red flowers, black stockings, no shoes and a pair of leather gloves. Her jewellery was gold and diamond encrusted. Nobody knew who she was.(Did they ever find out her identity?)

73/ Malaga, Spain, March 1885 (Boat Collision)

74/ Berlin, Germany, September 1908 (Train Crash)

Two trains crashed in Berlin on the electric elevated railway, with one of them being thrown into the street below and the other hanging on a parapet. Seventeen were killed on the spot, with dozens more badly injured. One fireman described seeing bits of human flesh hanging from the viaduct.Tthe accident was caused by one of the trains running a danger signal and many of the deaths were attributed to passengers coming into contact with the electric current. The railway ran from Westend to the Warschauer Brucke, making a loop of the Leipziger Platz. Every third train ran along the rails of the triangle, not touching the Leipziger Platz at all. This train hit another and the third class carriage was tipped over, about twenty feet down onto a courtyard of a warehouse near the Anhalter and Potsdamer Railway termini. (What was the death toll in the end?)

75/ Miramare/Trieste, Italy, June 1899 (Murder on a Train)

76/ Naples Double Suicide, Italy, December 1861

I suppose in a way you could say this is quite a romantic double suicide if there is such a thing. Mr Kenrick was an elderly married man who formed an attachment to a much younger Englishwoman, named Miss Gray. They moved around Italy, mainly in Rome and then to Naples. Kenrick had some wealthy relatives back home in England and sent letters asking them for money but they wholeheartedly ignored him, probably due to the fact he was wafting around Italy with a woman he could pass off as his daughter. They clearly loved each other because when it boiled down to it, they both agreed on suicide. They went to the cafe at Villa Reale, had a glass of rum, then climbed over a wall of the villa, past the semi-circle where the stone seats are and made it onto the beach. Miss Gray filled her dress with sand and tied it up around her ankles and Kenrick did likewise with his shirt, filling it with pebbles and sand in order to weigh himself down. After all this, they tied themselves together with their handkerchiefs and lay on the beach waiting or the tide to come in. Both bodies were found in the clear waters the next morning. Mr Kenrick’s life was insured for £3000, but because he killed himself the family wouldn’t get a single penny of it. (Are they buried in Italy?)

77/ Camphausen Pit, Saarbrucken, Germany, March 19th, 1885

78/ Camphausen Pit, Saarbrucken, March 20th, 1885 (near the French border)

79/ Estepona, (between Marbella and Gibraltar) (Englishman’s Body Found) December 1915

1/ Bradwell-on-Sea, April 1895 (Weird Sh*t)

Neighbours reported to police about the family next door. They said the 15-year-old girl had been suspected of having a child. Police found a fully developed child in the chimney and when questioned she said that she had put it there. Here’s the freaky bit….the father of the child was her brother! When the brother was asked about this he agreed the child was his; another strange thing is that the parents and siblings all sleep in one room!

2/ Grays (Training Ship Blaze) December 1875 (How many died in the fire?)

3/ Epping Forest Suicide, January 1885

I realise it’s a rather romantic image of Epping Forest but it’s all I had! This story is one of suicide and involves a 33-year-old decorator from Tottenham, William Henry Oats. He cut the skin between his thumb and forefinger with a pen-knife, then lay down on Mill Plain, Epping Forest, and bled to death. He had been despondent recently but showed no signs of suicidal tendencies. Oats leaves a widow, but no children.

4/ Epping Forest Child Murders, July 1891

A mother of two confessed to the murder of both of her children. Mary Jane Heathcote, 28 years old from Kingston Road, Stoke Newington, said that she had drowned Florrie, only 3 years old, and Cissie, aged 5, in Epping Forest. Police eventually found the bodies in Connaught Waters. She was wandering near the Chingford Hotel wet through and distressed when she told a man named Higgs of her awful deed. The two bodies were removed to the Kingsland pub to await an inquest. After her confession, she was taken to Holloway Prison. During questioning, she was asked why she did it but could give no reason for the crime.

5/ Great Bentley near Colchester, July 1889

6/ Colchester Murder, June 1891

7/ Braintree Workhouse, July 1889 (Did Chandler Die?)

8/ Rainham Ferry (Body in a Bag) May 1887

The body of a woman who was tied up in a bag was discovered at Rainham Ferry. There was no identification at all and the post-mortem examination revealed she was about mid-twenties and had been dissected by a professional. (Butcher/Doctor?). About three weeks later a Mrs Cross from Richmond reported her daughter had been missing for that length of time. Mrs Cross described her daughter as erratic, feeble-minded and having a speech impediment. She liked to watch the boats at Richmond and she last saw her on 20th January (This was now June). She was twenty-eight and 5 feet 8 inches tall, dark eyes, short black hair, and good-looking. A strange occurrence happened to her previous to her disappearance, when a man stopped her and said he would take her home. She walked with him a while then he demanded her shopping and her purse saying he’d stab her if she didn’t give them up. She handed them over and he ran off, but she did go to Barnes police station and report it.

July 1887

Another parcel with cut up human remains in it, similar to those at Rainham, Waterloo Bridge and Battersea, has been recovered from the Thames, near to the place where the original discovery took place. It probably means that the whole body was thrown in the water at the same time but in separate parcels. One young lady has been looking for her sister who went missing and she tells of her sister dating a doctor. They both met each other in South London, and he got a practice in North London, so she moved there with him, however, she disappeared about 2 months ago.

9/ South Weald near Brentwood, October 1858 (Suicide)

Eliza Horn, a girl in the employ of a farmer by the name of Mr Benson, of South Weald near Brentwood, committed suicide by drowning herself in a pond that adjoined her boss’s property. It was discovered when a servant called Curtis saw what he thought was “some linen” in the pond. He pulled it into the bank and then saw the girl’s face staring up at him. He was badly shaken by the whole affair,  so much so, that he went back to his parent’s house and then deteriorated and soon after died.

10/ Halstead Poisoning, January 1899

11/ Colchester (Body in River Colne) April 1867

The body of a woman was fished out of the river Colne and it was decomposed beyond recognition due to being in the water for about six weeks. Locals remembered hearing, in late February, screams for help from a woman from the direction of a garden next to the river. Deceased was Mary Ann Pettitt aged twenty-six, wife of a railway labourer, who’d left her in the Colchester Workhouse while he went looking for work. She was seen with Henry Draper Page near to the spot from which the cries were heard. She and Draper frequented a pub and went up the Ipswich Road. The last time they were seen was around 7-30 p.m., and when questioned said he was with her in the Rifleman, made a proposal to her but she wasn’t keen and he bid her farewell. The jury found him guilty of “Wilful Murder”, and he cried”Oh, my God! I am as innocent as the child in its mother’s womb. As Almighty God is in Heaven, I am innocent”, then he fainted. On his recovery, he added “I appeal to the Great Judge, if ever I touched that woman, or ever went to the side of the water. If I did, may Almighty God never forgive me. I go from here with a conscience fully knowing and feeling I never did the deed. So help me God”. ( What Happened? )

12/ Chelmsford, July 1880 (Lunatic Suicide)

Isaac Crabb had just been let out of Brentwood Lunatic Asylum, he then killed himself by hanging himself in a tree in Temple Wood near Chelmsford. He was about sixty and had been a labourer on the same farm for thirty years.

13/ Harwich, September 1885

14/ Chigwell Road, Loughton, August 1881

Louisa Bass was a domestic servant in the house of a clergyman in Chigwell Road, Loughton. When Bass’s mistress noticed a foul stench she went into the scullery and saw her burning something in the fireplace. She asked her what she was doing and received a feeble excuse, so she had the place searched. When the fire was checked there was a little bundle in it, burning. She then asked her if she had given birth to a child but she denied it. On searching upstairs and opening a box, there was found the body of a baby. A doctor was called and he gave the cause of death as strangulation as it had a piece of cord around its neck.

15/ Southend, December 1909 (Vicar’s Suicide)

Rev.Henry Charles Lang the vicar of All Saint’s, was found dead in bed from the effects of prussic acid, and next to the body was a sensational suicide letter:-

“The only way! Do not inquire anymore. You will think me mad, but I am not. I cannot make that excuse. Do not think it is the religion which I have taught outwardly, but for some time have not really believed…I am agnostic-that is, do not believe in the possibility of a Deity existing, except as a creative principle or first cause…In spite of you and other things, life is unsupportable. You have been the only light in my life, but how unworthy I am of you. Forgive!”. – Mrs Lang said that her husband had been acting strange recently, but nothing suggested this.

16/ Lamarsh Murder, October 1897

Oliver Hume, a railwayman, was formally remanded at Halstead charged with strangling his mother at Lamarsh. During the proceedings, prisoner fainted and on recovering consciousness shouted: “I did it; I was out of my mind”.

17/ Saffron Walden, March 1876 (Fifty-One Skeletons Found)

Discovered in the old Battle Ditches of Saffron Walden. The majority were barely under a foot of earth but one was deeper and more perfect, and in that was a glass bead necklace, three metal ornaments, and a large dagger, and some believe it is that of a Saxon chief. All but two were buried facing the West, some had broken bones and were battle-scarred. Another had a chunk of his skull missing. (Where are they now?)

18/ Upminster (Havering), August 1906

Mr William Abraham, from Upminster (Now in Havering), met with a singular death. He was blind in one eye,  and he was shoving a stick in the ground in his garden when it snapped in two. This caused him to stumble and fall on another stick, which, by a million to one shot entered his good eye straight through to his brain causing instant death.

19/ Wix, June 1851 (Mary May’s Husband’s Suicide)

Mary May’s cottage in Wix, Essex, was the scene of her husband’s suicide when Robert May hung himself inside. Mary May was famous for murdering her half-brother, William Constable, by poisoning him for the insurance money. She was executed at Chelmsford prison in 1848.

20/ Wennington Filicide, near Rainham, November 1876

21/ Colchester, April 1867 (Human Remains)

The human remains found in the old bed of the River Colne had certain documents, found with fragments of the body, and these showed that the remains were those of Mr R.Worswick a railway contractor who vanished a year ago. Several large pieces of iron attached by wire to the body, as well as a carpet-bag containing some important papers, were dragged out or the river, along with the body. A cheque for £49 signed by “R.Worswick” dated over 4 years ago was found in the bag.

R.Worswick’s son, John, explained that he was 60 years old, and they were partners in the railway contractors. The last time he saw him was at his residence in Magdalen Street on November 22nd, 1865, and he told him he was off to Leicester to see his brother. He left Colchester and went to London where he stayed at the Crown Hotel, St Martin’s Court, Leicester Square. Whether or not he committed suicide was not ascertained, so a verdict of “Found Drowned” was returned.

22/ Black Notley near Braintree, June 1851

A farmer named Wynn, living at Black Notley near Braintree killed himself in an extraordinary manner. He was insane and had tendencies towards violence as well, and when his wife tried to prevent himself from getting a knife to harm himself with, he threw her off. She then got help, and herself and the man who’d she asked saw him hacking away at his throat. He then started to brandish the knife about so they backed off. He then ran towards a pond and threw himself into it. They dragged the pond and found his lifeless body covered in knife wounds and cuts.

23/ Crays Hill near Billericay, February 1898

24/ Shopland Hall, Rochford, July 1845

Henry Truss attempted suicide, for the rather banal reason that he could plough a furrow as good as he wanted it to be. He saw his lacklustre effort then took out a penknife and made a couple of rather feeble efforts at making himself a second windpipe. He worked for Mrs Simmonds of Shopland Hall, Rochford, and that’s what I call a conscientious worker. Oh, by the way, he survived.

25/ Little Horkesley Hall Suicide, near Colchester, December 1888

Mr Thomas Bourdellon who was a magistrate for Essex committed suicide by drowning himself in a pond in the grounds of his property at Little Horkesley Hall near Colchester. The old fella was 88 years old and was depressed about his lack of health so he decided to bring it to an early end. (Little Horkesley Hall still there?)

26/ High Beach, Essex, June 1884 (Young Girl’s Suicide)

Jane Margaret Gibbings, only 19, committed suicide while living with her mother at Nile Cottages, High Beach Road. She had been a barmaid at the local pub and was seeing a young man named Charlie, but they had an argument, so as a typical melodramatic Victorian teenager would she killed herself. Her body was found in the water-butt and she left this rather curious last letter to her Mum:- “Tuesday night- My Dear Mother- When you hear of my distressing end you will, I know, break your heart. When I got into bed and had been there half an hour, the Devil paid me a visit. He stood talking to me for some time and he told me that he had seen Charlie- my young man with another woman. I said to myself, Now what can I do? To think he who I have loved so much should leave me for another. All of a sudden I thought of the water-butt and the more I tried to keep away from it the more the Devil tried to get me into the water. He said to me at last “If you jump in, I will get Charlie to bring you out. My head is raving and I feel on fire, I cannot say anything more. I have left my photograph in my box. Give it to Charlie and tell him that if it had been for him I should not have killed myself. I, however, did it for the best. Now, Mother dear, what the good of living! I was miserable and could not be happy without Charlie. Goodbye Mother. Give kind love to all. Your loving daughter, Jane Margaret Gibbings”.    Verdict; Suicide while in a state of unsound mind.

27/ Colchester Child Murder, January 1885

28/ Grays, January 1899 (Two Bodies in a Vat)

A brewer working for Seabrookes Ltd., Grays in Essex, by the name of Bream, found two bodies in a 500-gallon vat, one was George Byford, the other Edward Potter, of New Road, in Grays. The supposed scenario was that they were meant to clear out the vat and both went down, but the carbonic acid gas sort of suffocated them and they both passed out. They were taken out and sent to their own homes. Potter was married with children.

29/ Thaxted, January 1882 (Human Remains)

In Thaxted, there is a public house known as the Rose and Crown. It used to be a cheap lodging house, and when goods were being taken in the place, a floorboard was seen to be rotten so they were lifted up, and underneath were two human arms supposedly a child’s arms. Police searched further but nothing else was found. It is still there, but now is called the Maypole, it closed in 2009 as the Rose and Crown. In 1882 the landlord was Frederick Kifford, did he have anything to do with the child’s limbs?

30/ Saffron Walden Suicide, April 1890

At Rickling near Saffron Walden, James Bush from Maunden killed himself in a dreadful manner. One night he slept in a shed next to the Cricketer’s Arms and was discovered the next morning with a slash mark across his stomach with the innards spilling out. He was still alive, but when asked why he’d done this his reply was that he had done it while asleep. He lived a few more hours, then died.

31/ Brentwood Fire, June 1885

32/ Waltham Abbey, August 1900 (Lovers Suicide Pact)

The bodies of a man and woman were found in a field in Sewardstone; he is about forty-five, she is about twenty odd. They both had gunshot wounds to the head and police have figured out that he shot her first, then himself. Letters were found on the male which was addressed to the Danish Consul so they are presumed to be Danish nationals. In the letter, it states that they decided to die together, and despite the large age gap, they were lovers. The bodies were taken to Waltham Abbey Mortuary. (Who were they?)

33/ Essex County Asylum, Brentwood, April 1910 (Mysterious Deaths)

A couple of mysterious deaths have occurred at Essex County Asylum in Brentwood. Around 100 patients were outside in the grounds, and when taken back inside, Richard Pearson, from Claybury, and Alec Rayner from Chelmsford became seriously ill. The doctor was giving artificial respiration to one of them and the other died while he was doing this. They were known for eating any stuff off the floor, like worms. Neither of them died in the manner of a poisoning. They had rabbit for dinner but nobody else was struck down with any type of sickness. Post-mortem suggests that one died from syncope (low blood pressure fainting). The other was asphyxia. Doctors put it down to a coincidence that both died at the same time as coming in from the airing ground.

34/ Harlow, Essex July 1900

Alfred Edward Burton, of Feltimore Farm, Harlow, was in the garden picking peas with his missus when a bird flew past. Burton said to his wife that it was the same bird that pinched her currants, and went off to shoot it. His wife heard a shot but received no reply when she asked what he’d shot. She thought he’d ventured further out to get it and when she finally went up to the top of the garden, he was lying on the grass with his head blown away. Verdict “Accidental Death”.

35/ High Beach Suicide,  April 1892

William Abergfell of 30 Endymion Road, Finsbury Park, in London, was found hanging in a tree in the High Woods at High Beach. Medical Officer said he’d been dead several hours and that the deceased used to be quite well off until he’d started gambling, and had lost huge amounts of his money. This was probably the only way out of problems he’d accumulated.

36/ Shoeburyness Explosion, February 28th, 1885

 

37/ Shoeburyness Explosion, March 7th, 1885

38/ Purfleet, (Body Washed Ashore) December 1880

This is an unusual story because when a body was found floating in the Thames near Purfleet, it was dressed in a man’s clothes, but it was a woman. She was wearing an 18-carat gold ring and gold studs and was about 20 years old and generally a good-looking lass. In the pockets were addresses of several City firms, and photos of her dressed as a man. A waterman by the name of Robert Owen saw her jump from Woolwich Pier around two weeks ago. The Met. had tried to identify the woman but without success so far. All her belongings are in the possession of Aveley police in case anyone can identify them. A verdict of “Found Drowned”.

39/ Marks Tey Station, December 1908 (Railway Death)

Thomas Lambert George was the manager of Smith and Son’s bookstalls at Marks Tey Station and was unfortunately killed in a freak accident. He was on the footboard chatting with a passenger when he jumped off, his coat snagged in the door handle and he fell under the train. His chest was crushed and neck was broken.

40/ Romford, March 1899

41/ Mountnessing, September 1893 (Riot at Funeral)

Edmund Peasey killed himself by laying his head on the tracks of the Great Eastern Railway and letting a train run over him. Peasey had been accused by his employer, Mr Hawkins, an innkeeper and baker of Mountnessing, of thieving from them. The jury censured the Hawkins for such a hasty judgment. The funeral at Mountnessing churchyard had 500 mourners and afterwards armed with sticks and bottles they went to the Hawkins house and made a racket outside for several hours. Someone threw some water over them from the top window of the inn that Hawkins kept, then all hell was let loose. They smashed windows and hurled objects at the rest of the building. Police arrived and managed to quell a potential riot and even worse a lynching of the Hawkins.

42/ Bradfield, (Anvil Death) May 1850

An accident at a wedding celebration resulted in the death of a blacksmith. It is custom in Bradfield, that when a blacksmith gets married there is a ritual called, “Blowing up the anvil”. The wedding was planned and Mr Scrivener had made the appropriate plans for the blowing up, which is a very dangerous act. A long iron rod was heated and gave it a blow with the hammer, when the powder exploded, probably from a piece of grit between it and the iron, and the sledge-hammer handle on which he was resting was driven straight through his body. He died instantly. He was 28 and married.

43/ Claybury Asylum Suicide, March 1899

A Mahommedan (Muslim) named Ben Zaat Sagheer, committed suicide in Claybury Lunatic Asylum by stabbing himself in the stomach with a pair of scissors. He died from septic poisoning from wounds sustained, and the jury stated that they thought one of the attendants named Harrold who gave evidence, was lying.

44/ Basildon Murders, September 1906  (see No.60 as well)

45/ Saffron Walden Child Murder, July 1897

Emily Pask and her father, Joseph Pask, were both charged with the murder of her baby boy. She had been a bit of a one, who had had several kids to her name with some dying in childbirth. She lived with her Dad at home and she did all the cooking and cleaning, but this was one child too many for Emily and Joseph.

46/ Southend, January 1885 (Wife’s Suicide)

The body of Ellen Bloxam, the 22-year-old wife of the second officer of the Royal Mail steamer, Tongariro, was found dead on the beach near to Southend. In November her husband set sail for New Zealand and told her he’d write to her from Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Due to bad weather, he didn’t get into port and his letters were taken to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. The wife grew anxious or thought he didn’t care so she went to the beach and drowned herself. This is a story that the moral should be “hold on for a bit longer”. The day after they found her dead body the expected letters turned up.

47/ Colchester (Railway Death) June 1889

On the arrival at Parkstone Quay of the Continental train, which passed Colchester at 9-13, the remnants of man’s body, along with bits of shirt cloth were found on the engine. The rest of him was found somewhere on the line and his features were obliterated. He was smartly dressed and had small hands and feet. The corpse was taken to the Railway Tavern at Colchester and was eventually identified as Frederick Ralph Merry, a former confectioner at Brentwood. He was now living in North Street in Colchester as a lodger of Mr Howe, a builder, and was about forty years old. Friends and family said that he had been acting strangely recently and even told Mrs Girvain of East Hill, that he was going to do himself in.

48/ Sandon Wife Murder, July 1870  (near Chelmsford)

insanity

49/ Chelmsford- A Boy’s Suicide,  August 23rd 1870.

At Chelmsford yesterday a boy named Thomas Twinn, aged eight, committed suicide. He deliberately walked into the Chelmsford and Maldon Navigation River, whilst his ten-year-old brother stood quietly by and watched him drown. The boys had been gleaning corn, and their mother had threatened to thrash them for laziness. Their parents belong to the “Peculiar People”.

                                                                           Inquest- August 24th 1870.

50/  Saffron Walden- A Gamekeeper Shot    November 1870

51/ Suspected Murder at Romford,  December 1866 ( Sun public house on London Road)

52/ Fatal Collision at Coalhouse Point,  January 1867 (Coalhouse Point is near Tilbury East)

53/ Burnt to Death, Victoria Inn, Heyridge.  April 1866

54/  Fatal Shooting at Chelmsford, December 1903

55/ Murder at Little Warley (Maud Garrett), November 1903.

December 1st, 1903.

Bernard White, aged twenty-one, executed at Chelmsford, for the murder of Maud Garrett. She was found dead with head wounds and a broken jaw, and other terrible injuries. White had become jealous of the girl on his return home. (He served in South Africa)

56/ Moat Farm Mystery, Clavering,  May 16th,1903. (Murder of Camille Holland)

Moat Farm Murderer Execution, Chelmsford (Newspaper Article) July 1903.

57/ Death of a Career Criminal, Colchester.  August 1904.

58/ Witham Railway Disaster, near Chelmsford.  September 1905

59/ Suicide of a Girl at Pattiswick, near Braintree.  June 1906

60/ Essex Farm Murders, Basildon.  November 1906  (Sentence of Death- Also see No.44)

61/  Woman Kicked to Death, Lexden, Colchester.  November 9th, 1907

Saturday, November 23rd, 1907

Charles Garnham, a ploughman at Viaduct Farm, Colchester, was charged on remand, at the local court, on Tuesday, with the wilful murder of his wife. At the inquest, the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter, but it was urged, on behalf of the Treasury, that the number of blows and their violence must make the case one of wilful murder. The accused was again remanded.

62/ Murder of a Gamekeeper, Audley End, near Saffron Walden.  14th October 1880

Wednesday, 20th October 1880.

The inquest as to the death of John Prior, who was last week shot by a poacher at Saffron Walden, which resumed yesterday. Evidence connecting a labourer named William Wright with the crime given; after five hours investigation the jury returned a verdict of “wilful murder” against him. The young man was positively sworn to by the assistant gamekeeper who accompanied Prior, and some things found at the scene of the murder tended to associate him with the deed.

Friday, 12th November 1880.

Petitions to the Home Secretary are being signed in Chelmsford, Saffron Walden, and at other places, praying that the sentence of death passed upon William Wright for the murder of John Prior, a gamekeeper in the service of Lord Braybrooke, may not be carried out, on the grounds that the prisoner had no intention of killing the deceased, that the finding of  the hats of the two men and a button from the prisoner’s waistcoat on the ground suggested that there had been a struggle and that the jury strongly recommended the prisoner to mercy. If there is no intervention, the sentence will probably be carried out at Chelmsford Prison on the 22nd inst.

Tuesday, 23rd November 1880

Yesterday evening the Under-Sheriff of Essex and the Governor of Chelmsford Prison received a communication from the Home Secretary respiting during Her Majesty’s pleasure the sentence of death passed upon William Wright, labourer, aged twenty-three, for the murder of John Prior, gamekeeper, at Audley End, Saffron Walden. The petition in the culprit’s favour from Chelmsford and district bore 1063 signatures.

63/ Suicide on Chelmsford High Street.   October 1880

In Chelmsford High Street yesterday afternoon, while the weekly market was at its height, a man named Ramsay took from his pocket a bottle containing oxalic acid and drank the contents. He fell to the ground, and, being picked up by the police, was carried into Shire Hall, where he died a few minutes later. Ramsay, who had lived in Chelmsford, was about fifty years of age.

1/ Enfield Murder, October 1885 (Somewhere between Enfield and Haringey boroughs).

 

2/ Enfield Murder, March 1900

A verdict of “Wilful Murder” was returned against 76-year-old Henry Groves, costermonger, for causing the death of Henry Smith aged eighty-two. The men were next-door neighbours, and while they were arguing  Groves attacked Smith with a scythe and inflicting such hideous injuries that after lingering for a month, in abject pain, he finally passed away.

3/ Angel Road Explosion, Edmonton,  July 1895

​

4/ Enfield, (Accidentally Shot)  June 1839

An inquest was held at the Greyhound Inn, Enfield, regarding the accidental death of James West, who was shot being mistaken for a deer. He was accidentally shot in the head and the viewing of the body turned a few stomachs. The bullet entered just above his right eye which took part of the scalp away thereby causing instant death. The circumstances are as follows:-

A stray deer had been seen repeatedly by various witnesses, and on the day in question. A young man named Nott was informed and he wanted to shoot the deer so he brought a gun along, also accompanied by a dog and a boy. He told the boy not to move about in case he injured him. While hunting the deer West was showing the boy a blackbird’s nest when Nott thought the movement behind the hedge was the deer and took a pot-shot. Nott’s father has promised to aid the family of the deceased. A verdict of “Accidental death” was recorded.

5/ Edmonton Child Murder, August 1905

6/ Near Edmonton Station, (Corpse in Woods) November 1866

In a copse on Bury Farm, about a mile from Edmonton Station, some human remains were discovered. Mr Ellis, the proprietor, along with his son were out shooting in the woods when the young lad thought he spotted a man lying on the ground. On closer inspection, it was found to be the body of a dead man, stretched out and with the face leaning to one side. He was dressed for a day’s shooting, in dark trousers, a shooting jacket, silk hat and boots with spring sides. An old newspaper was in his pocket, dated August 18th. Judging by the state of the body and the decomposition, it was around then that he died, fully three months ago. There was nothing to identify him and the remaining flesh of the body, fell away when removed. How he got there is a bit of a mystery, as there is no path in the wood, nor in any direction. Police think that due to the proximity of the railway to the farmhouse it is likely that he was injured on the line then crawled to the wood, then died there.

7/  Enfield Wife Murder.   January 1906

8/ Baby Farming in Victoria Road, Edmonton.   December 1st, 1906 (Jessie Bayer burned the body of a baby)

9/  Baby Farming Inquest, Edmonton.  December 20th, 1906. (Inquest on the dead child found at Jessie Byers house in Victoria Road, Edmonton)

1/ Timisoara, Romania, February 1897

Eighteen women were arrested on suspicion of a mass poisoning of their husbands. Their bodies are to be exhumed and tested for poison. Similar to Hungarian husband poisoning club in 1880.

2/ Budapest, Hungary, (Infant in Bread) December 1891

This is one of the sickest ways I’ve heard of to get rid of a dead body! Someone was tucking into some bread, crunched into it and found some small fragments of flesh and bone of an infant. It had been minced up and kneaded into the dough and then baked and distributed throughout Budapest.

3/ Dyatlov Pass, Russia, February 1959

Definitely Russia’s greatest unsolved mystery. A group of nine students go off on a hiking trek in the Ural Mountains, then when nobody sees or hears from them, the Soviet’s send out a rescue team. What they find is a scene of utter carnage. Firstly the bodies were not grouped together, they were spread kilometres apart with some semi-nude and some wearing one another’s clothes. One party had been found in a ravine, all four had been severely beaten and indeed arms and legs were broken, including one girl with a missing tongue. The tents had knife marks cutting from the inside out, there was a set of footprints (barefooted)in the snow. Who the hell would go to such lengths? A group of pissed up locals? Could one of the students gone on an Anders Breivik style rampage?

It appears whatever scared these students, it was enough to make them cut open their tents, grab a handful of clothes, no matter whose they were and go into the sub-zero temperatures. Whoever or whatever did this did one hell of a job. Nearly sixty years later no one has thrown any light on the mystery.

4/ Cape Elia, Cyprus, (Sphinx Tragedy) April 1878

upsetting of one of their stoves. The Sphinx is completely destroyed from bow to midships and all that is expected to be saved is the engine.

5/ Bulgaria/Turkey, December 1904 (Steamer Sinks in the Black Sea)

A violent south-westerly gale and storm which prevailed in the Black Sea and Sea of Marmaris from the 15th to the 20th of November caused huge damage on land and at sea. The steamer “Elpis” of the New Hellenic Steam Navigation Co, with seventy passengers and general cargo, was lost in the Black Sea and it feared that all passengers and crew went down with her.

6/ Poland Family Murdered, December 1872

In the Russian (it was then!) village of Osowiec, in the Government of Grodno (Belarus), a rich timber merchant named Apfelbaum and all his family, numbering fifteen persons, have been murdered in the night by a gang of robbers. After taking all the money they could find the robbers burnt down the cottage. Six persons have been arrested, but the gang is said to have numbered around twenty men.

7/ Gleboka Jewish Family Murdered, Ukraine, September 1885 (Actually Gleboka, Lviv, Ukraine)

8/ Friedland (Frydlant, Czech Republic January 1899 (Suicide with Dynamite)

At Friedland, a country town in Bohemia, now in the Czech Republic, an elderly man of sixty, Francis Stern, lay on his sofa then lit a stick of dynamite and put it on his chest. As you can well understand there wasn’t much left of old Francis, as when he was found there were bits of flesh, blood and bone spread on the walls and floors of his flat. I think his theory was, that it was a guaranteed way to kill himself.

9/ Kirwan Colliery Explosion (Now Karvina, Czech Republic) March 7th, 1885

10/ Kirwan Colliery Explosion, now Karvina, Czech Republic March 9th, 1885

11/ Near Lake Van, Armenia, (Avalanche- 63 Dead) May 1885

According to a telegram from Constantinople, there has been a terrible avalanche in the Ala Dagh mountains near Lake Van in Armenia. A caravan numbering seventy-five persons, which was passing at the time, was swept away and nearly annihilated, no fewer than sixty-three of the company having lost their lives.

12/ Saratov, Russia, (Brutal Lynching) December 1879

In a village, two Tartars were lately seized in the act of stealing a sack of flour from a barn and were shut up all night. Early next morning the whole population of the village assembled and condemned the two culprits in a manner which would have done credit to the most ingenious torture inventor. The unhappy men were first bound to poles and beaten with clubs, till their legs and arms were broken. Then the bleeding victims were tied to the tails of horses and dragged over the frozen field until dead, their bodies being afterwards flung over a precipice. The newspaper does not say whether the murderers were called to account.

13/ Koenigsberg Murder, (Now Kaliningrad, Russia) March 1899 (Sorry, bit clumsy with the scissors!)

14/ Cilli Stage Suicide, Styria, (now Celje in Slovenia) March 1899

15/ Troppau now Opava, Czech Republic and Ostrau is now Ostrava, Czech Republic, March 1885

16/ Drvenik, Croatia, November 1890 (Croatian Customs and Beliefs)

This story gives an insight into the widely held customs and beliefs of the Croatian people in Victorian times. About a year ago, late October 1889, two sisters, aged eighteen and fifteen, were sitting on the rocky coast near Drvenik, sheep herding, when their cousin, Spiro Drazic, encountered them on his way to chop wood in the forest. The elder sister went to gather the stray sheep after he had left them and was gone for around fifteen minutes. When she came back she found the younger sister in tears saying that while she’d been shepherding, Spiro had “dishonoured her” and that she was going to drown herself in the sea. Literally, as she finished the sentence, she ran to the cliff edge and plummeted over, into the sea. The sister told this story and a local priest said that girls from this neck of the woods consider themselves to have been violated, even if a man touches her breast. This is exactly what the sister told the family, that Drazic had touched her breast. The jury came to the conclusion that Drazic was responsible for her death and he got twelve years in prison. However, he was retried and this time he ended up with a one year sentence of imprisonment.

17/ Posarevatz Romantic Tale, (Now Posarevac, Serbia) June 1895

18/ Gleiwitz (Now Gliwice, Poland) July 1889

A terrible explosion caused by an accumulation of foul gas in a furnace occurred on Thursday at Count Donnersmark’s ironworks near Gleiwitz, Germany. Five workmen were killed outright and several others were severely injured.

19/ Angerburg, Germany (Now Wegorzewo in Poland) (Bricked Up Alive) October 1893

A frightful discovery was made at Angerburg (Wegorzewo), while excavations were being carried out underneath a church there. The labourers found a walled-in space, inside of which, was a human skeleton, a broken chair along with the remnants of a helmet and a pair of boots. The wall had scratch marks on them, as though the prisoner had clawed at the bricks and mortar, in a desperate bid to get out. It is all too evident that a person had been bricked up alive.

20/ Liptau, Hungary, (Now Liptov in Slovakia) April 1885 (Persecution of Jews)

21/ Guta, Hungary, (Now Kolarovo in Slovakia) April 1899

22/ Warsaw Mass Infanticide, Poland (Angel Factory)February 1890

No less than seventy-six cases of infanticide were found to be the work of a woman named Skublinsky from the Polish capital, Warsaw. She was aided and abetted with the help of her son, who carried the dead infants out in a basket. The heartless bitch also slept and dined in the same room as she kept the decaying bodies in a stove. It was called an “Angel Factory”, whether that is an orphanage of sorts or a baby farm, I’m not altogether sure. (Anybody know what an “Angel Factory” was?)

23/ Poland? April/May 1899 (Mine Disaster)

A telegram from Warsaw stated that a terrible disaster had occurred at a gold-mine in Troigh?. A shaft where ninety-nine men were working, collapsed owing to an inrush of water and sixty-two of them were killed. The remainder were rescued with great difficulty, most of them having serious injuries. (Where is Troigh?)

24/ Rzecze (Volhynia is on the Poland/Ukraine border) August 1892

25/ Budapest, Hungary, October 1889

26/ Vagankovo Cemetery, Moscow, Russia June 1890 (Suicide on Husbands Grave)

33-year-old Marie Aksenow killed herself on her husband’s grave in Vagankovo Cemetery, Moscow, in an act of self-immolation. Aksenow carried a small cask of kerosene with her to the grave, then doused herself in it and set herself on fire. The cask also caught fire and it blew up. The cemetery gravediggers ran to try and save her but she was burnt to a crisp by the time they arrived. Ever since the death of her husband six months ago, she had suffered from depression and had tried to kill herself on many occasions.

27/ Yeniseysk, Russia, February 1899 (Balloon Crew Found dead in Siberia)

28/ Itzkany Explosion, (Now Itcani in Romania) March 1895

29/ Bucharest, Romania, August 1889 (Double Suicide)

30/ Nagy Bobrocz, Slovakia, (Great Fire) February 1899

During a gale which blew last night what proved to be a destructive and fatal fire broke out in the village of Nagy Bobrocz, in the county of Liptau (Liptov). The flames fanned by a high wind, spread with rapidity, which defied all efforts to master them and in a short space of time no fewer than three hundred houses were reduced to ashes. A number of villagers lost their lives while endeavouring to save their property.

31/ Cracow, Poland, September 1885 (Jewish Murder Trial)

32/ Stettin is now Szczecin, Poland (On German border) June 1899

There were several dozen school-children from the Stettin area on board the boat that day. Around thirty are supposed to have perished in the collision. They stood little or no chance, as the Blucher sank within a few minutes. Captain Ehrke of the Politz, who is said to be responsible for the accident, was arrested. (What happened to Captain Politz?/What the end death toll?)

33/ Szerdahely, Hungary, January 1880 (Husband Poisoning Club)

This is probably my favourite story in the East Europe section. A Husband Poisoning Club was formed. A number of suspicious deaths had been happening in the Szerdahely district, with eight married farmers dying in the last six weeks. Such an instance in a city or major town would be looked into thoroughly, but out in the sticks of rural Hungary, it was put down to a coincidence. It got so bad that the authorities decided to make a thorough inquiry into the matter. The post-mortem reports and death certificates said the men died from a fever, but it was actually arsenic poisoning. It was cooked up from a rat poison and had been put in the men’s wine, the coffee etc. The discovery of a husband poisoning club amongst the “merry wives” of the neighbourhood was a major coup for the police. Mainly they wanted to be rid of their drunken husbands who didn’t work and relied on the women to support them and secondly, they did it for the insurance money.

Szerdahely, 1882

52-year-old Kathi Lyukas or Kate Nagy as she was better known, who murdered a couple of her husbands and confessed to another six murders. Lyukas was suspected of killing twenty, by putting arsenic into cakes and giving them to whoever they wanted to die. She was hanged at Stein-am-Anger, now Szombathely in Hungary near the Austrian border) in November of 1882. (Was she the sole member of the “Husband Poisoning Club”, doing it for cash?)

34/ Hungary, October 1889 (Mother Kills Six of Her Children)

35/ Debrecen, Hungary, (Fatal Duel) July 1885

1/ Refusing to Save a Drowning Boy, Hanwell, Ealing.   April 1885

2/ Hanwell Asylum Suicide, December 1885

An inquest on the body of Mary Arabella White, the 38-year-old wife of Henry White, revealed she was an inmate of the Elingrive Private Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell and had managed to escape one night. The next morning her body was found floating in the River Brent. Deceased had outwitted her attendants and “committed suicide whilst insane”.

3/ Ealing, (Mysterious Discovery) May 1882

A mysterious discovery has been made at Ealing by a mounted patrol.He was doing his rounds when he spotted something lying on the path. He climbed down and discovered that it was a policeman lying face downwards against the railings. He tried to help the fellow to his feet, but then found that his head had passed directly through the railings and was firmly fixed to them. (Who was the policeman?/Name?)

4/ Hanwell Asylum Murder, February 1859

A murder is being investigated at the Hanwell County Lunatic Asylum. About two dozen patients were let out together one morning and among those were William Roberts and John Brady. They were put to work doing some gardening, used as employment and for therapeutic reasons. Roberts was twenty-eight years of age, who had been in the Asylum for exactly half of his life and was renowned for violence, having attacked a fellow inmate three years ago. This particular morning  Brady was near to Roberts, who was digging with a fork, when the head gardener, Birch, saw Brady on the ground with Roberts stood over him jabbing at him with the fork. There was blood all over his face and one eye had come out of the socket and was laid on his cheek. Attendants grappled hold of Roberts and Brady was rushed to the Infirmary, but he died on the way there.

When asked if he was sorry that he’d attacked another inmate, he simply replied: “I meant to kill someone”. At the inquest, and before the jury, the coroner said that the accused was an epileptic sufferer and he didn’t know what he was doing before a seizure. The jury’s verdict was “Misadventure” and it questioned the validity of giving a violent inmate a garden fork to use and that this procedure must now be looked at and possibly changed.

5/ Hanwell Lunatic Asylum Fire, February 1863

Another tragedy strikes Hanwell Lunatic Asylum! It was Friday night, when most were in bed, that the fire alarm was rung, and there was mass panic among the 1600 patients. The wing that was alight was the laundry and linen rooms, which is heated by a boiler, and the flames were seen raging over the drying department. It is believed that one of the flues was defective, and this wasn’t caused by a patient playing with some matches or similar. Luckily the fire drill was performed immaculately, and this helped to limit the injuries to a few cuts and bruises, but happily, nobody was killed.

6/ Hanwell Asylum Suicide,  July 1st 1870

7/ Parents Deny Child Medical Attention, Bedford Park,   October 1906 (Christian Scientists pray for their child to recover)

8/  Infant Burned to Death, Allison Road, Acton.  December 1880

9/  Raffle Prize Kills a Boy, Ealing.  December 1880

Yesterday Dr Diplock held an inquest at the West London Hospital on the body of William Rogers, fifteen, son of Robert Rogers, drill-master at the Central London District Schools, Hanwell. On the 11th of December, the deceased won a pistol in a raffle at Ealing. Two hours afterwards he was about to shoot at a bird when his coat caught the trigger of the pistol, which went off, the bullet penetrating his right leg. The house surgeon of the hospital said the deceased was admitted suffering from a pistol-shot wound in the outer part of the leg, about two inches above the ankle. Witness removed the bullet, which he found at the base of the big toe. The deceased went on well uny=til the 18th, when lock-jaw set in, and he died on the 20th. The jury returned a verdict of “Accidental death”.

10/ Two Boys Drown in a Pond, Uxbridge Road.   October 1880

An inquest at the King’s Arms, Acton Vale, on the bodies of two boys, named Thomas Stocker, aged twelve, the son of a labourer, living at Bannister’s Cottages, Hammersmith, and Charles Nutcher, also twelve, and from Albert Place, Starch Green, who were drowned while bathing in some water in a brick field on the Uxbridge Road. Henry Blake, a carpenter, said on Monday evening he found two suits of boys’ clothes about twelve feet from the water. It appeared that two labourers searched the water and found the bodies of the boys the same evening. The verdict of the jury was one of “Accidentally drowned”.

11/  Mother Drowns Her Baby, Gladman’s Cottages, Hanwell.  December 1880

12/  Man Murders a Child at Acton.  25th October 1880  (George Pavey stabbed ten-year-old Ada Shepherd in the neck)

Tuesday, 2nd November 1880  (The Acton Child Murder)

Tuesday, 30th November 1880. (Execution Date)

Monday, December 13th, has been fixed for the execution within the walls of the gaol of Newgate of the man, George Pavey, who was convicted last week at the Central Criminal Court of wilful murder at Acton.

1/ Castle Eden Colliery, February 1866 (Roasted a  Child Alive)

A drunken father took it out on his six-year-old child. The wife began to nag him when he came in and a fight ensued and she cut his face in self-defence. The man, whose name is Dudley, grabbed the child and threatened to throw it on the fire. Dudley tried to, the wife fled to neighbours and told them what he was doing. In his drunken stupor, he had knocked over a boiling hot pot of tea, scalding the legs and body of it. No doubt he would have carried out his threat if not stopped, but he has since absconded.

2/ Hartlepool, (Child Buried Alive) May 1870

3/ Durham Cathedral Death, November 1873

Mr David Lambert, bass-singer of cathedral music, was taking care of the choir at Durham with the psalms about to commence when he dropped down dead smacking his head on a desk. His Dad was nearby and ran to his son’s side, but he was already dead. The Dean stopped the service and it was cancelled from then on.

4/ Bishop Auckland Cemetery Murder, April 1909

The body of 5-year-old John Leslie Armitage was found in the cemetery at Bishop Auckland, with his throat cut. At nine a.m. the grave-digger named Woodhall found his little body lying at the base of an ash tree with a prayer book laid over the boy’s heart. The superintendent of the cemetery, George Ross, said that the lad was laid out as if prepared for burial, his arms at his side and a handkerchief tied on top of the head and under the jaw. The father of the boy was found hanging at Fylands Bridge and the murder weapon, a razor, still in his pocket saturated with his son’s blood. The father was an ex-policeman in the Durham force and was twenty-seven years old. (Boy’s grave nearby?)

5/ Margaret Pit Disaster, June 4th, 1885

Margaret Pit Disaster, June 5th, 1885

6/ Durham, September 1880 (Suicide of Servant)

Mr T.Scawin, Justice of the Peace, employed 21-year-old Martha Walpole Mustard as a servant. He left her alone for an hour and when he returned the door was bolted shut. He tried shouting and pounding on the door but no answer, so he got his foreman to break in. They entered the house and went to the girl’s bedroom to see where she was, but she was hanging by a cord from a hook, with an upturned chair near the body. Martha had been heartbroken by the death of her boyfriend in the Seaham Colliery explosion, and she wished to be with him.

7/ Aycliffe Railway Deaths, January 1890 

8/ West Hartlepool, (Molten Metal Deaths)August 1890

On Tuesday morning a car containing 25 tons of molten metal exploded at Seaton Carew Blast Furnaces, West Hartlepool. Two men, named Thomas Anson and John Musgrove were covered with the fluid and Musgrove was burnt to death. Anson was also shockingly burned.

9/ Belle Vue Church, West Hartlepool, July 1895

During a heavy thunderstorm on Monday night, the Belle Vue Church, West Hartlepool, was struck by lightning, and the tower fell. Some men standing nearby had a narrow escape from injury.

10/ Stockton-on-Tees, (Fatal Gun Accident) April 1892

11/ Collingwood Road Suicide, West Hartlepool, March 1898

A shocking discovery was made in a grocer’s shop in Collingwood Road, West Hartlepool. A customer went in and found the manager named Davidson, lying in the back of the shop with his throat cut, and a large bacon knife lying near. On a piece of wrapping paper was written: “I can’t stand life any longer. I am mad with a toothache, and have been up all night”.

12/ Stockton-on-Tees,? 1883 (Murder of Son)

George Cooper, a labourer, has been committed for trial by the magistrates at South Stockton on a charge of murdering his son, the body of whom was found in a pond tied in a sack weighted with bricks. The prisoner stated that he had sent the boy to an aunt in Norfolk, producing a letter purporting to be written by the aunt stating the boy had arrived there, but the letter was proved to have been written at the request of the prisoner by a boy in Stockton.

13/ Darlington Waterworks Fatality, June 1885

Yesterday afternoon a painter named Henry Coates was decapitated at the Darlington Waterworks, being caught by the engine and carried amongst the machinery.

14/ Seaham Steamer Disaster, November 1885

15/ Elemore Colliery, near Pittington, August 1857 (Decapitation)

A terrible accident happened to a pitman named Hunter at Elemore Colliery. Hunter and another man named Lishman, just finished work, came to the bottom of the pit to be drawn to “bank”. They put their feet in the loop of a chain attached to the engine at the pit mouth, and holding the chain in their hands they began to ascend. After getting halfway, somehow a loop in the descending chain got caught over his head and before he could disentangle himself his head was literally ripped from his neck. The headless body came to the “bank” with Lishman, and the head was found later on and brought to the top of the shaft.

16/ Stockton-on-Tees Double Murder, May 1920

17/ Etherley Colliery, January 1885

Two men were buried by a fall of a roof in the George Pit, Etherley Colliery, Bishop Auckland, and one of them was killed.

18/ Durham Murder, January 1899

A Durham telegram states that Henry Burns aged seventeen, who is alleged to have fatally shot a girl named Ellen Palmer at Durham on Saturday, was arrested at Newcastle yesterday and handed over to the Durham police.

19/ Durham, July 1885 (Child Murder)

A domestic servant named Sarah Dunn aged seventeen was sentenced to death for the murder of her illegitimate child, only sixteen months old, by thrusting it into a drain where it suffocated in the mud. The jury recommended her to mercy and it is perfectly understood in such cases that the sentence will be commuted.

20/ New Seaham Colliery, August 1885

Two men were killed at New Seaham Colliery by the fall of a roof while they were at work. The men, who were brothers, were named Joseph and Bernard Wood. The former leaves a widow and child.

21/ Darlington, August 10th 1885

22/ Darlington (Cab Fatality) August 12th, 1885

23/ Long Newton near Stockton-on-Tees, October 1889 (Double Suicide)

Two brothers, James and John Reed, aged forty-eight and forty respectively, both shoemakers, were discovered to have committed suicide at Long Newton near Stockton-on-Tees. They had both been drunk for some weeks and when they vanished for a couple of days a search party was gathered. James was in the house, hanging from a rope and John was found drowned in a pond half a mile away. They were due in court for disorderly conduct and this worried them both.

24/ Consett, July 1895 (Skeleton Found)

A group of friends went on a picnic and found a female skeleton lying beneath a tree in a lonely part of the woods near Consett. All the flesh was stripped from the bones, and an arm and a leg were missing, thought to be eaten by woodland animals. The skull was still there and police believe it is the remains of a woman who disappeared from the area about a year ago.

25/ Spennymoor Murder, February 27th, 1885

26/ Spennymoor Murder, March 12th, 1885

27/ Bishop Auckland Suicide, October 1893

48-year-old Benjamin Peart’s body was found drowned in a stream that runs near to Bishop Auckland Cemetery. In a tobacco-box, was the following suicide note:-“Dear Wife-Forgive me. May the Lord bless my innocent wife and children. Myself alone to blame. Only keep up; don’t fret; you’ll be better off without me. Kiss them for me. Tell son’s to be teetotal”. (Near Red Alligator pub-St Andrew Auckland-River Gaunless next to it).

28/ Durham Murder, April 1899

29/ Seaham Harbour, May 1885 (Any Fatalities?)

30/ Consett Ironworks Deaths,  May 1859

Seventy men were working in the rail mill, rolling iron for railway plates when the fly-wheel suddenly broke. This is a twenty-ton hunk of metal rotating at 70 rpm, so anybody or anything in its way would stand no chance. Bits fell in the wheel pit but large fragments went everywhere including one piece, three and a half tons, flew 25 yards and stuck against a wall. Another one and a half ton segment were embedded in the ground and the roof had a 150-foot gash in it, and it was this damage that caused debris to fall on four working nearby. They made every effort to get them out from the rubble and hot metal fragments lying about. The men are -Patrick Marther who was killed and Daniel Duffy severe burns and loss of a finger; Matthew Murphy cuts and bruises and badly burned, and lastly, Michael Duffy has had to have a leg amputated due to a huge mass of iron falling on him.

31/ Woodhouse Colliery Explosion, May 1899

32/ Armfield Plain, March 1873 (It says it’s twelve miles from Durham)

The other confusing aspect of this tale is that they had a 15-year-old barmaid! She was Mary Ann Birch and she had been accused of dipping her fingers in the till. Mary Ann admitted it and was told to leave the premises the next day. On the morning she was due to go Mary Ann was sat down chatting with another servant when she grabbed a knife and said: “She had a good mind to cut her throat”. Later on, she was spotted mixing a powder with water then gulping it down, and within the hour she became violently ill. Mary Ann died later on that day. “Suicide while of unsound mind” was the verdict.

33/ Ushaw College, (Mill Dam Fatality) June 1885

34/ South Durham Steelworks, October 1901 (Man Roasted Alive)

A smelter by the name of James Gallagher died at West Hartlepool Infirmary from his shocking injuries, sustained at South Durham Steelworks. He accidentally fell into a pit containing red-hot ingots of steel and became jammed between two moulds. Before he could be extricated he was literally roasted alive.

35/ West Hartlepool Murder, May 17th, 1899

An inquest at West Hartlepool yesterday on the body of Mrs Emily Thompson aged thirty-seven, who was shot on Monday night with a revolver by her husband, a coloured man named Thompson, and who died yesterday morning. Thompson was jealous of the lodger, Isaac Phillips, whom he also attacked with a knife. A verdict of “Wilful Murder” against Thompson was the jury’s verdict. Phillips is in a critical condition.

36/ West Hartlepool Murder, May 23rd, 1899

37/ Wingate, November 1909 (Mother Kills Four Children)

Mr James John Dodd, a solicitor, left Ivy Cottage, East View, to go to work at West Hartlepool. He came back for lunch and a scene of horrific proportions met his gaze. Firstly, he found his wife who was semi-conscious from the effects of poison, then in the bathroom, he found his 8-month-old son, David, in his pram with his throat cut. The bath was full of water and at the bottom was a carving knife and also a bottle of poison was there. Elsewhere he found Millicent, his eldest daughter, only six, and four and a half-year-old John, then two and a half year old Paul, all in bed with their throats cut. Dodd rushed downstairs and went to get an ambulance and police. They took away Mrs Dodd who was still alive. They had lived happily at Wingate for a couple of years and were both devoted to their children, so why she did this, is a mystery.

38/ Kimblesworth Colliery, (Three Killed) August 18th, 1885

39/ Kimblesworth Colliery, August 19th, 1885

An inquest at Kimblesworth Colliery on the three men killed through the breaking of a rope attached to the “cradle”. It is stated that the rope had been in the colliery for ten years. The jury returned a verdict of “Accidental Death” and recommended that ropes should be covered over to protect them from the weather.

40/ Etherley Dene Murder, November 1885

41/ Neville’s Cross (Cycling Death) May 1905

42/ Blackhill near Consett, October 1876 (Glutton’s Suicide)

John Holiday committed suicide by hanging himself with a neckerchief attached to an iron bedstead. The name of Holiday was well known in the North of England, for his gluttonous habits. (19th Century-Man v Food). He was a well-paid boiler plate-roller and during his dinner break, he could drink a bottle of brandy. His wife turned up to work one day with a roast duck with a couple of pieces cut off the kids. He threw it in the works machinery stating that next time she would bring him an entire duck. The guy would be nowadays known as “Fat Bastard”, but he lost his sight later on, and it is for this reason that he killed himself.

43/ West Hartlepool, (Drowned) August 1885

Two young gentlemen, the son and nephew of Mr Geipel, shipbroker, in company with a Miss Pounder, went out to sea at West Hartlepool in a pleasure boat. As they were leaving the harbour the boat was struck by a heavy sea and capsized. The two young men were drowned and Miss Pounder was only saved with extreme difficulty.

44/ Durham Execution, March 1898

 

45/ Accidental Shooting at Archer Street, Darlington,  December 1872

46/ Durham Asylum Murder, January 1876

A lunatic in the Durham Asylum, named Dobson, was murdered by a fellow lunatic named Mayley. It all started when Dobson took Mayley’s seat then Mayley grabbed him by the legs, threw him over his head and jumped on him. All his ribs were fractured as was his chest bone.

47/   Hartlepool Cliff Fall,  September 1870

48/  Hartlepool Grievous Bodily Harm/ Unlawful Wounding in Bishop Auckland.   December 1870

49/  Hartlepool Murder,  December 1870

50/  Death on the Wear at Durham,   December 1870

51/ Pelton Colliery Accident,  January 1866

On Friday night a collision took place at the Pelton Colliery, near Chester-le-Street, Durham, between two sets of tubs, on one of which twenty-five lads were proceeding to the foot of the shaft. Several of them were crushed against the wall of the shaft and under the tubs, which fell upon them. Five of them died soon afterwards, and four are so badly injured that they are not expected to recover.

52/ Pelton Colliery Explosion (Twenty-Four Killed)   November 1866

53/ Accident or Suicide?  Middleton Shooting,  June 1866

54/ Wolsingham Murder/Suicide,  October 1866

55/ Brandon Manslaughter, February 1902.

Twenty-eight-year-old Thomas Felton, miner, married, was committed for trial at Durham Assizes on the coroner’s inquisition on Monday for the alleged manslaughter of twenty-year-old Thomas Wright, who was also a miner. It is alleged that Felton stabbed the deceased during a disturbance about some pigeons!

56/ Stockton-on-Tees Child Murder, June 20th, 1903.

57/ Seaham Harbour Murder Trial,  July 1904.  (George Breeze Strangled Margaret Chisholm)

58/ Mainsforth Colliery Tragedy Solved 18 Years Later,  June 1905.

59/ Strange Suicide in Durham Gaol,  September 1906.

60/  Stella Gill Fatal Accident,   October 1906.

An accident, resulting in the death of two men and the injury of three others, occurred yesterday morning at Stella Gill, near Chester-le-Street, Durham. The railway being widened, and a footbridge, Pelton flat bridge, is being taken down. Five men were working upon it removing bed-plates. Suddenly, a girder fell, and with five who were carried with it, falling fifteen feet. Joseph Raffles, foreman, and Robert Harrison, labourer, both of Gateshead, were killed, and three others were seriously injured and were taken to Newcastle Infirmary.

61/ Four Miners Killed at Urpeth Colliery,  December 1906.

62/ Wingate Colliery Disaster,  October 16th, 1906. (At least 26 men were killed at this time)

63/  Two Young Girls Murdered in Darlington.  November 1907

64/  Young Man Murders His Girlfriend at Evenwood, near West Auckland.  October 1880

Wednesday, 17th November 1880 (Execution of William Brownless)

William Brownless, aged twenty-two, and a shoemaker by trade, was executed at Durham Gaol, at 8 o’clock yesterday morning, for the murder of his sweetheart, Elizabeth Holmes, at Evenwood, on the 18th of August.

65/  Body Found near Hartlepool Station.  December 1880

The Coroner held an inquest yesterday at Hartlepool concerning the death of an unknown man, whose body was found on the railway, near Hartlepool Station, on Christmas morning, with the head completely severed from the body. His appearance and clothing seem to indicate that he was a fireman of a steamer, but inquiries instituted by the police have failed to establish his identity. From the fact that only a knife and a tobacco-box were found upon him, and from the position of the body when found, it is feared that the man had committed suicide from want. The inquest was adjourned.

66/ Fatal Accident on Hartlepool Pier.   October 1880

Early on Saturday morning a workman, named Alfred Excell, employed at the new pier extension works at Hartlepool, met his death in a shocking manner. He was assisting to take down some gearing at the pier end, at a height of nearly thirty-five feet above the level, and, missing his foothold, fell headlong into the stonework of the pier. He thence fell into the sea, from which he was taken out, dead, a few minutes later. Deceased was married, but leaves no family. This is the first fatality that has occurred at these extensive works since their commencement, over eleven years ago.

67/  The Seaham Colliery Explosion (Newspaper Article)  October 1880 (The death toll in the explosion was over 160 men and boys were killed)

1/ Junction Hotel Suicide, Dorchester, August 1892

A 20-year-old man from Surbiton, on a cycling holiday, was found shot in the mouth in his room at the Junction Hotel, Dorchester. He was on a tour of Dorset, but went to buy a revolver in Dorchester, went back to his room, locked the door and shot himself. Identity unknown. (Still there-on Great Western Road)

2/ Portland Prison, Dorset, July 1875

Still there as far as I know (2016).This was the largest prison with around two thousand inmates. They used to be worked in the “Crown Quarries”, as a sort of slave labour, to mine Portland stone. Also home to John Lee, the Babbacombe murderer, who famously survived the hangman’s rope three times.

​

Portland Prison Suicides

3/ October 1898 -William Staines hung himself in his cell from towelling, then kicked the stool from underneath himself.

4/ July 1887 -Henry Marshall had had enough of being inside, so he leapt over a railing, and fell 40 feet. Unfortunately, he landed head-first on the pavement below.

5/ July 1875 -A prisoner by the name of Wells, jumped from one of the galleries inside the prison to the floor below. It was a drop of 60 feet, and he lingered till the next day but died in agony.

6/ Blandford Murder 1883

7/ Moreton Estate near Dorchester, October 1896

8/ Wool Station Train Death, February 1916

Private Alfred Brookes Wadham of the Australian Infantry, had been given leave to go to his mother’s funeral in London. He was entering the station at Wool, in Dorset, when he fell out of the compartment of the train, directly in front of an approaching train. His right leg was severed, and his head was crushed. Wadham was a widower and 31 years of age, and he also fought at Gallipoli and was invalided home. The verdict was one of “Accidental Death”.

9/ Christchurch, May 1903 (Young Woman Decapitated)

Another train accident in Dorset! This one was at Christchurch Railway Station and resulted in the death of Miss Sophie Cross, 32-year-old, who’d been staying with a mate of her’s at Southbourne, near Bournemouth. Sophie was standing on the platform at Christchurch Railway Station when the express to London flies past, and witnesses say she jumped in front of it. The body was recovered, minus the young lady’s head, which was severed from her body.

10/ Poole Harbour Drowning, September 1885

While the pleasure steamer Bournemouth was coaling in Poole Harbour, three men fell off the plank, and one of them, named Freeborn, was sadly drowned.

11/ Boscombe, (Three Drowned) October 1885

12/ Bridport, October 1883 (Lady’s Suicide)

This is one of “Did she?Didn’t she?” scenarios. At Bridport, there is a 300-foot high cliff, the East Cliff, and it is this that the girl named West either threw herself off or just slipped and fell. Her body was found at the base of East Cliff, badly mangled. West recently moved to Bridport, and told neighbours she would not go back to her husband, and regretted marrying him. A couple of days later, she sent a letter to a guy in London asking for financial assistance but got no reply, and then she got depressed about her whole situation. Sounds like suicide!

13/ Chewton Glen, Bournemouth, (Fatal Landslip) April 1906

Miss Florence Adela Leach was a telegraphist from Bournemouth Post Office, and she and some friends went for a day out, also accompanied by her fiance, George Rushford. They took a walk along the beach between Mudeford and Chewton Glen. All the girls wanted a group photo at the base of the cliff, and Mr Pulsford was ready to take the picture when 30 tons of cliff debris suddenly collapsed upon them. Everybody got away, but the exception was Miss Leach, who was completely buried by tons of earth. When she was dug out, she was already dead. (Suffocation was the cause of death).

14/ Swanage Fatal Landslip, August 1885

15/ Blandford Suicide, August 1892

A bizarre suicide of an old lady took place in Blandford, when 60-year-old Catherine Forsyth set her bedroom alight, then slit her throat. After the blaze had been extinguished, her badly charred body was brought out. She had a cord fastened around her neck, and this strange act is attributed to her “boyfriend” had left her and married another woman.

16/ Rimpton near Sherborne June 1858 (Scythe Accident)

An unlucky accident occurred in the little village of Rimpton near Sherborne, involving some men who were scything a meadow. Charles Hodder was in the meadow mowing the overgrown grass and reeds when it was time for a drinks break. Hodder took a swig of his favourite beverage and then continued to mow. He finished before his colleagues, so he lay down in the grass for a short kip. One of other’s failed to spot him and the tip of the scythe went straight into his jugular vein. By the time help was forthcoming, the man had lost too much blood, and died in the field. He leaves a wife and five children.

17/ Bournemouth, (Fireman Killed) October 1885

18/ Bournemouth, July 1895 ( Ex M.P. Found Dead)

Mr Francis Coldwells, was the former M.P. for North Lambeth, in London, was found dead by his wife. He was in the summer-house in the garden of the house he been staying at in Bournemouth. He was sixty-three and had complained of internal pains recently. (Is house there any more?)

19/ Bridport, March 1882 (Mob Revenge)

In October 1881 a lad named Harry Spencer hanged himself at Broad Oak near the town of Bridport. The rash act was down to the abusive treatment of him by certain relatives. On Guy Fawkes Night, effigies of his wife’s parents were burned, while a crowd threw stones at the house where they lived. Several men were bound over to keep the peace. However, Mrs Spencer, wife of the suicide, died. It was thought this was brought on by the constant harassment of the locals and fearing for her life. The mob also got what they wanted when the mother of Mrs Spencer, put a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger, blowing the back of her head off. She had also been harassed by the mob, with that and her daughter’s death she decided to end it all.

20/ Poole Suicide, October 1893

This story has a slightly sad, romantic twist to it. It all starts with Alfred Bourlet, a Frenchman, who was engaged to Peddie, who was a Geordie girl, and she went to Bournemouth. While there, she died. Now, this would suggest wrongdoings on his part, but this is where the story differs from others. He was absolutely heartbroken and he came from Paris to take care of the funeral arrangements. He placed a wreath on her grave, wrote a note saying he was going to kill himself, and that”My heart died the same time as my darling’s”. His body was found next day on the beach at Poole.

21/ Dorchester, December 1885 (Did he Die?)

22/ Portland Prison Execution, August 1869

23/ Loders (Strange Deaths)  September 9th 1870.

Two lads, George Brown and Arthur Symes, the former aged eight and the latter nine, living in the village of Loders, Dorset, met with a shocking death on Tuesday evening. They were driving a couple of cows to feed, and round the waist of each lad was fastened a rope, which was attached to the cow. The lads went leisurely along the road, picking nuts in the hedgerows when the animals suddenly took fright and dragged he lads after them at a furious pace. The lads were found lying in the road, quite dead, Brown having been completely scalped.

                                                                        Loders, September 10th 1870.

24/ Portland Prison Death  July 1870

25/ Portland Prison Murder,  July 1870

26/ Execution of Portland Prison Murderer,   August 1870.

27/  Weymouth’s Female Swindler,  November 1870.

28/  Acid Attack in Poole High Street,  October 1870  (Not a particularly uncommon headline in Victorian times. This cowardly act has made a comeback in the 2010’s of the UK)

29/  Fatal Fight in Fordington,  December 1870

30/ Death in the Snow, near Beaminster.   January 1866

31/ Death on the Railway, Weymouth.  April 1866

A lad named Robert Baker, aged fifteen, lost his life on Saturday last, under the following circumstances:- The boy, with several others, was pushing some trucks on the rail, which are used by the corps of the Royal Engineers to convey materials for the construction of the Nothe Fort at the entrance of the harbour, and the lad Baker was riding upon the buffers of one of the trucks, which, being pushed over the incline leading into the fort, began to descend very quickly. The boy, evidently seeing the danger, tried to jump off, but in doing so he stumbled and was caught by the wheels of the truck, which passed over his neck. His neck proved to be dislocated when medical aid arrived shortly after the accident happened. He died within two hours after the accident, during which his sufferings were dreadful.

32/ Weymouth Boating Fatality,  May 1866

33/ Fatal Accident at Harbour Bridge, Weymouth.   October 1866

34/  Fatal Explosion at Weymouth (Sketchley’s Saw-Mill)   March 1867

35/  Attack on a Warder, Portland Prison.   November 1866 (Did the poor chap, Gale, survive?)

36/  Three Drown at Wyke Regis,   June 1866

37/ Portland Railway Fatalities,  October 6th, 1903.  (Four Killed)

October 7th, 1903. (The Inquests)

38/ Death During a Parlour Game, Broadstone, Poole.  January 1904. (Snap-Dragon is a parlour game played in the winter time. Raisins were placed in a brandy, then brandy was lit, then raisins were picked out.)

 

1/ St Marychurch Churchyard Suicide, Torquay, January 1890

A postman named Searle was taking a short-cut through the church-yard of St Marychurch and came across the body of a man hanging from a tree. He fainted, but when he woke, he managed to get help. It turns out to be an ex- coachman turned coffee-tavern manager by the name of Brewer.

2/ Devonport Suicide, November 1893

Twenty-eight-year-old Amos Trout was found on the workshop floor of the premises where he worked, with a gunshot wound on his left side. He had constructed a home-made gun by putting a piece of gas pipe in a vice, plugged one end and then drilled a touch-hole then placed in gunpowder. Trout then placed a home-made bullet in it and fired the projectile.

3/ Torquay Church Death, November 1875

4/ Bideford, (Skeletons Found), November 1884

5/ Ottery St Mary, October 1846 (Double Suicide)

Mary Olderidge, aged twenty-six and Jane Smith were chatted up by a bloke, and Olderidge tried to get half a crown to get some booze with. The man on finding out he’d been scammed, said he would go to their employer if he didn’t get it back. They went and bought threepence worth of arsenic, then went back to work. They finished their shift later that night and went straight to the pub where they drank a cider and poison cocktail. Both women died in agony, Olderidge a few days after taking it and Smith a day later. A verdict of “Felo de Se”, or suicide to you and me. Both of them were buried at midnight with no Christian rites in the church burial ground.

6/ Barnstaple,  April 1889 (Tannery Fatality)

7/ Exmouth Fatal Fire, August 1889

8/ Devonport Officer Suicide, March 1892

9/ Ilfracombe Regatta Fatal Accident, August 1889

10/ Ilfracombe, June 1899 (Message in a Bottle)

One summer’s day a coffee canister attached to a bit of cork was found washed up by a boy near Ilfracombe. Inside was a note that read: “To my wife & children- The Stella is going down as I pen my last words. If I do not survive, go to my brother. Goodbye, my loved ones, goodbye. R.NEEL, A.B. to Mrs Abigail Neel, 5 High Street, Cardiff”    – It was written in pencil on a page torn from a diary. When inquiries were made at 5 High Street, Cardiff, it appeared that nobody had any relatives or friends associated with the Stella. (Cruel Hoax?)

11/ Devonport, April 1861 (Murder Confession)

Currently, on board H.M.S.Impregnable at Devonport, is one Charles Davies, a Welshman, twenty-eight years of age who was brought from Rio de Janeiro by H.M.S.Buzzard, where he’d been serving as a seaman on board H.M.S.Madagascar, entering that ship from a merchant vessel while in Rio. He tells a tale that the captain and mate on the merchant ship liked him, but the rest of the crew despised him and plotted to throw him overboard. When on the Madagascar something forced him to tell them that a few months before, while in Wales he murdered a girl and even told where the body was. The man was useless on board ship due to his hallucination, so he was sent to the Buzzard and when that arrived at Devonport he was handed over to the Impregnable. Police in Wales have examined the place where he said the body lay, and sure enough there it was! It had been there for nine months. Now he’ll be handed over to civilian authorities to await trial for murder. It was dread of being thrown overboard that suddenly gave him some remorse for his crime.

12/ Paignton, December 1919 (Honeymoon Death)

A tragic ending has befallen a newly wedded couple on honeymoon in Paignton. Mr Thomas G.Taylor aged sixty and a member of Plymouth Council got married and then went to Paignton for a honeymoon. When they arrived he told police of a theft of some of his wife’s property and returning to the hotel, he suddenly died. (What Hotel?)

12/ Dawlish Drowning, June 1899

13/ Plymouth Suicide Letter, July 1886

William George Oliver was going out with a young girl called Emma Jenkins when a week ago she broke off the engagement. William was livid, so went to the house at Wolsdon Street and tried to talk her out of it. She was unrepentant, so he fired three times at her with a revolver. He ran for it and then shot himself, leaving a suicide note in his pocket. It read:

“I know you will be grieved to know that I Have done this wretched act, for you know I and Emma Jenkins have been keeping company for about three years, and now the engagement is broken off. I have brought a revolver to shoot both as soon as I get a chance. Rather than see her walking with others I will die. God has said that the murderer shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Oh, how I do pray that God will forgive me. I have brought it on myself, for I have been a wretch to the one I love. She spoiled me in the beginning. She should have crushed my temper, and this would not have happened. Let me give my brother’s a little advice, not to treat their women as I have done, but do all that lies in their power to please them. P.S. Please when I am buried put this likeness in the coffin with me-my own and hers. Love is my mistake in life, and if she don’t have what I have in my pocket, may she take warning, and not trifle with anyone’s temper, for it is dangerous to both. If I should not kill her, but kill myself, ask her to go to my funeral, and place some ivy leaves on my coffin. Tell her to keep up her spirits, and not grieve about it, for I forgive her what she has done for me. God Bless her and help her to go through life better than what I have done. You can have this likeness copied. Goodbye and goodbye”.

14/ Wellington Murder, January 30th, 1885

 

Wellington Murder, February 4th, 1885

 

Wellington Murder, February 7th, 1885

15/ Bideford, November 1884 (Skeletons Unearthed)

While building work was being carried out at some cottages, near to the Union Workhouse, two skeletons were dug up, only two feet from the surface. They were adults not advanced in life, as teeth were in near perfect condition. Unusually they lay on top of each other and buried in quicklime. One skeleton was five feet eight inches tall, the other five feet five, with the latter having a larger skull. No sign of a coffin and the positioning seems to be hurried and careless. A medical gentleman examined them and said they have not been there more than twenty years or so. About fifty years ago, a farmer was rumoured to have been murdered and thirty years ago a young lad named Oatway went missing and was never seen again. A gravedigger named George Harding said the digging was done by an amateur.

16/ St James’s Church, Exeter, April 1907 (Haunted Church)

St James’s Church in Exeter is supposed to be haunted. Weird sounds and tapping are heard in various parts of the building, just before morning and evening services. It has been described as “chanting of Psalms”. The voices are heard all over the place and efforts to solve the mystery have proved fruitless. (Did it stop? Church still there?)

17/ Exmouth/Topsham, August 1892

18/ Plymouth, March 1906 (Fatal Experiment)

This would never happen today as Health and safety regulations would stop it, but they stopped conkers and Blue Tac in schools as well! Emma Rowe, a fifteen-year-old pupil at the secondary school was doing an experiment testing the strength of caustic soda. The young girl had to drain the liquid by suction into a tube, but she swallowed some. She was given antidotes and placed under medical care but died in great agony a few days later. Apparently, the Board of Education had sanctioned this experiment and was perfectly normal.

19/ Devonport Station, August 1894 (Amazing Coincidence)

A clerk from Wandsworth by the name of William Moses left Waterloo station on a train bound for Devonport. As the train was pulling in to Devonport he was found in a compartment in a dying condition and died shortly after. Here’s the coincidence-his father died at the same station about three years ago and when Mr Mose’s pockets were checked, they found his father’s death certificate on him, which ultimately led to his identification.

20/ Newton Abbot Murder, November 1896

21/ Lake Hill, Barnstaple, December 1906 (Murder/Suicide)

Lydia Brown was found by the roadside with her throat cut and stab wounds in her chest. A small boy witnessed the murder and ran to town to tell the police. They went to the scene and a man was seen running from the murder spot and a dead male was discovered on the railway, a supposed suicide. After all this commotion, evidence was given to police about a man and his girlfriend who were savagely attacked and stabbed by a “wild-looking man”, near Lake Hill. The suicide was John Ash, a twenty-one-year-old local man whose jealousy got the better of him, hence stabbing his girlfriend, Lydia Brown. The couple had lived in Lake near Barnstaple with Ash’s parent’s, but for the last couple of month’s she lived in Barnstaple with a relative of hers. It seems that the relationship had cooled off, but he wouldn’t leave her alone but asked for a meeting. During this meeting he slit her throat then rushed off, passing William Dean and his girlfriend. Dean asked what the matter was and he attacked him with the knife. Ash then went to the railway line and placed himself on the track and let an engine run over him. Further searching revealed a note on Ash’s mangled body, which read:

“Goodbye Mother, Father, Flo, Jim, Willie and George. Give Bill my guns and watch. Well, Mother, I could not die without Liddie. The poor maid was good to me, but it is all over now. God has forgiven me for my sin. Tonight I stabbed her because she forsook me.”

22/ Plymouth Suicide, September 1894

Albert Cummings, a thirty-three-year-old carpenter was found by two children whilst picking berries, with two huge gashes on his throat and dead as a dodo. He had been missing from home for four or five days and he wasn’t robbed and murdered because he had money and a silver watch still on his person. He left a widow and four kids and the verdict was the common one in cases like this, “Suicide whilst temporarily insane”.

23/ Stoke Damarel Manor Death, December 1885  (See No.40.)

24/ Luffincott Rectory, June 1907 (Haunted Rectory)

The rectory at Luffincott is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a former vicar called Parker.The present rector saw the apparition and fled the building, leaving furniture and contents behind. Midnight vigils have taken place there and parties spend the night hoping to spot the ghost. They have left behind rubbish and empty bottles and have vandalised the piano, smashing it to pieces and also the mantelpiece. The chairs, shutters and panels were torn off and used for firewood. Five officers from the Plymouth Garrison stayed there but they saw or heard nothing. The Bishop of Exeter has had enough of these shenanigans and declared the benfice void.

25/ Athenaeum Street, Plymouth, January 1894 (Human Remains)

Workmen were digging on Athenaeum Street, working on the sewers, when they came across some human bones. Further excavations revealed several skulls as well, which were in good condition. Tongues started to wag but the explanation was far more mundane than people had hoped for. They were the bones of dead French prisoners who passed away while at Mill Bay Barracks, known as a French prison. They were found four feet from the surface but will be re-interred immediately. (Re-interred where?)

26/ Keyham Factory Fatality, Devonport, April 1899

27/ Ashburton Mill Accident, April 1832

A sixty-year-old man named Jewell, worked in a bark-mill, powered by water and while he fed bark into the machinery, the cogs etc. stopped, so he pushed it in with his hand. You know what’s coming! His arm and hand were churned up in the machinery and despite his plea’s for help, it took a while to get him free. His arm had literally been mashed to a pulp and his words to the rescuers were, “cut away my smock frock and all will be well”. Jewell was taken home to recuperate but he died a week later. The strange thing is there was a deja vu moment the day before when he caught his thumb in the workings and a fellow colleague said: “Suppose it had caught your hand?”. His reply was ” Then it would have pulled it off! ”

28/ Stonehouse Infanticide, December 1885 (Plymouth)

29/ Royal Artillery Camp Fatal Explosion, Okehampton, August 1901

The range officer at the Royal Artillery Camp at Okehampton, while inspecting the Dartmoor Ranges prior to an exercise, found three dead men. They were Sergeant Bleakley, R.F.A., ex-Sergeant Vanstone and P.C. Hall, both of Devon Constabulary. They had died from an explosion of Lyddite (explosive used in Boer War). They had been handling a live shell when somehow it went off. These three men were trying to find people who were stealing metal from the ranges. It turns out that Vanstone found the unexploded shell buried near Yes Tor on Dartmoor and with the other two went to unearth the bomb. Vanstone had no hands and a hole in his stomach, Hall had his arms and his head blown off and Bleakley was blown to smithereens, only his scalp and hair and a boot with a foot in it was left. This evidence suggests that Bleakley took the brunt of the blast, of a forty-pound lyddite shell.

30/ Slapton Sands, August 1910 (Missing Brothers)

The name will ring a bell with a few people, because it was here in April 1944, that 750 American soldiers were killed in a rehearsal for D-Day landings. German E-boats fired on them while they were unaware of anything untoward happening. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, and the other sad statistic is that there were no German casualties in response, so they never fired back. This story is of two brothers, William and Richard Downing, who went swimming while visiting their father at Slapton. The father got worried when they didn’t turn up and he went down to Slapton Sands and found their clothes, but not their bodies. (Bodies ever recovered?)

31/ Dartmoor Prison Fatality, Princetown, May 1885

This one resonates with me because I have epilepsy, but you’re not allowed to serve in the military, so it must have been a first and only seizure.

Captain Kemmis, governor of Dartmoor Prison near Princetown, went up to dress for dinner and when he didn’t reply to her requests, she went in and found him sat in an armchair, dead. Medical men pronounced his death to be from epilepsy.

32/ Plymouth, November 1885 (Bigamist Vicar?)

33/ Rockbeare Suicide, June 1853

Henry Havill only twelve-years-old, hung himself from an elm tree at Rockbeare, Devon. The boy did gardening work for the Rev. J.Elliott, and he slept there occasionally. He left for work one day and said he be home later that day, but when he didn’t come back the father presumed he was staying at the Reverend’s house. The next day there was no sign still and on the third day he asked a servant but was told he hadn’t been at all. Searching the property they found him hanging in a tree by his handkerchief, with the wound definitely self-inflicted. His brother hung himself a few months ago and it is thought he would join him, by committing suicide.

34/ Kingsbridge Road Station, near Kingsbridge, May 1885

A shocking accident occurred near Kingsbridge Road Station on the South Devon Railway. A seaman named West lost his hat from a train in which he had travelled from Plymouth, and while proceeding down the line after it, he was struck by a goods train and killed on the spot, with both his arms and a leg being cut off.

35/ Rockham Bay near Ilfracombe, August 1899

The body of Lionel Hugh Broad, a Croydon accountant, who was staying at Castle Rock, Morthoe, was found at the bottom of a cliff at Rockham Bay near Bull Point Lighthouse. The alarm was raised when he failed to return for dinner and the search party reckoned that he fell from the 300-foot cliff by accident. His head was shattered and he had a wound in his back.

36/ Exeter Lovers Drowned, October 1885

37/ Broadclyst near Exeter, September 1874 (Headless Corpse)

A lad was nut gathering in some woods at Broadclyst when he found a headless body of a man. On looking further, he saw the head in some bushes. There was a handkerchief tied to a tree and it is presumed that he hung himself, then as time ticked on decomposition took hold and the decaying flesh separated. A bag and some papers were nearby and they suggest he was a foreigner, a Belgian in fact, and the passport belonged to Salom Capelle, which is supposed to be the dead man.

38/ Plymouth Railway Fatality, November 1885

Mr George Heard, a licensed victualler from Plymouth, met a terrible death when he tripped over an embankment sixty feet high on the Tavistock line and was cut to shreds by an approaching train as he lay across the rails.

39/ Exeter, May 1849 (Real Culprit Found)

A couple of years ago a parcel went missing at Exeter Post Office. The banknote inside was passed on by a person who resembled a brother of a clerk, so immediately suspicion focused on him. He was sacked from his job, with this cloud hanging over him. However, his father was that overcome with the whole situation that he committed suicide and for that time the family suffered disgrace and poverty. The real culprit was found in the last assizes at Exeter and was a postman named Harrup, who confessed to the crime and was sentenced to transportation.

40/ Stoke Damarel Manor, December 1885 (Inquest) (See No.23)

41/ Torquay, (Body in Cellar), December 1885

Auctioneers were moving furniture and boxes around Springfield House, which was occupied by Mrs Sutton and her mother when they found a packing case. They checked to see if it was empty and inside was a coffin. When that was prized open the body of a three-year-old boy was left inside. The Sutton’s claim that the boy died on a recent trip to America, but as to why it was in a case in a cellar is unclear.

42/ Warcombe Farm Murder/Suicide, near Kingsbridge, June 1904

Mr Hubert Baker owns Warcombe Farm and is well liked in the locality. When a gardener heard a gunshot at about seven o’clock, he went to the place he heard it coming from and saw the body of Mr Baker, with a bullet in his head. As the body was being taken to the farm, two more shots were heard and in the same field was the body of Albert Corner, a young lad in Baker’s employ. By his side were a walking stick and the gun and the reason for him doing this was because he had been sacked. Baker had given him a week’s money and told him to leave the premises. Corner wanted revenge and lay in wait for Baker to pass him in the field while seeing to cattle. He lay there until he could see him approaching, then jumped out and shot him in the shoulder, and then Baker tried to run to the farm but Corner followed and eventually shot him in the head. Corner knowing the police would put two and two together, shot himself in the face, blowing part of it away. He remained alive, so he put a stick in the trigger and again pointing to his head, pressed the trigger with his foot, this time it worked.

43/ Royal Citadel Death, Plymouth, August 1885

Two privates of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment went on the ramparts of the citadel at Plymouth and lay down to sleep on the grass. Soon after, one of them, George Lockey, turned over and rolling down the slope was dashed upon the rocks below and was instantly killed. He had been reported for being drunk the night before and had been ordered under arrest.

44/ Plympton Vicar Vanishes, April 1885

45/ Marwood Suicide, North Devon, April 1832

A 24-year-old cabinet maker from Marwood, Richard Tucker hung himself, because of love and jealousy. He had been seeing a local girl for some time, but she had recently turned her attention to another young stud. As was customary in the village they had a dance at the local public-house, so he went along to see if she was there. She was there and she was dancing with the other bloke he’d heard about, plus she gave him a real mouthful of abuse. A few hours passed and a party-goer went into the stable to get his horse but saw Tucker suspended from a beam. Verdict “Temporary Insanity.”

46/ Ilfracombe Secret Signalling, July 1900

Two men were found in possession of a secret naval signalling code. A coastguard was interrogated by the two, as to signals to distinguish foreign warships. One had a book and the coastguard was surprised to see it was a copy of the secret code. He reported it to officials and the two men were followed on board a Bristol steamer, where they were arrested and the code confiscated from them.

47/ Hartland, March 1863 (63-year-old Suicide)

Mr E.Hockin, an auctioneer at Hartland, was found hanging by the neck to a nail in his own house. Though sixty-three, he had been seeing a woman but she had dumped him. The lady had gone to London to get out the way, but this made things worse and he ended up committing suicide.

48/ Tiverton Mystery, February 1885

49/ Theatre Royal Fire, Exeter, September 1887

At Exeter’s newly opened Theatre Royal, the crowd grew restless, thanks to a poor performance and a host of mishaps. They wanted a refund by the sound of it, for an amateurish production, then howls and jeers forced the curtain to come down. Unfortunately, the gas lights lit the curtain and a huge fire spread quickly. There was a mass panic and around 130-160 persons never made the exits, and the fire was so intense that most of the bodies were burned to a crisp, so much so that relatives couldn’t identify them either. The exact number of deaths is still unknown to this day.

50/ Royal Albert Hospital Suicide, Devonport, October 1889

Lieutenant Francis E.J.Tottenham, the ex- navigating officer of H.M.S.Curlew, had recently been staying at Thomas’s Hotel, Devonport, but then suffering from delirium he had been transferred to the Royal Albert Hospital. During his stay in the hospital, had shown violent tendencies and one morning at eleven a.m. he overpowered a nurse then leapt from a window, a fifty-foot drop. He fractured his skull and broke both legs, but died after an hour. He was thirty-five years old and not married.

51/ Plymouth Hoe, September 1850 (Child Suicide)

John Denham, a thirteen-year-old boy had just been told off by his Dad and told that he’d be having no dinner, he rushed out of the house and down to the Hoe, where he threw himself over the rocks and was drowned.

52/ Tiverton Boy Suicide, January 1865

The son of the grave-digger at Tiverton Cemetery, a lad of thirteen, killed himself by hanging himself in the dissenting chapel. He had been having fits recently and his mother had told him off for fighting with his brother, this tipped him over the edge.

53/ Devonport, May 1884 (Scene at a Funeral)

Charles Williams, a naval pensioner who committed suicide was meant to be buried, but a shocking scene ensued outside deceased’s house. A crowd of 800-1000 had gathered, with the sole objective of lynching the widow. She had been seeing the deceased while he married the first time and whom he married two week’s after she died. Policemen remembered that trouble brewed at the wedding and the locals had a long memory and a low tolerance for this type of behaviour. There was hollering and jeering all the way to the cemetery.

54/ Plymouth Fire, December 14th, 1885 (Looe St-Thirteen Dead)

 

55/ Plymouth Fire, December 15th, 1885

56/ Exeter Suicide,  January 1862

The body of a young woman named Piper was found, and it was down to the treatment of her father that she did this. Everyone agreed about his brutality toward her and threatened to kill her. The deceased’s mother said, “My husband always treated her cruelly. When I told him what had happened, he said “I am glad of it, and if it is she who has drowned, I’d stay up and make the coffin. Now I shall be happy.” When she died an insurance company would pay out £8 11 shillings.

Police said that when she was found, he didn’t seem at all bothered, and he tried to get her earrings off her dead body. A juror threatened to throw him in the canal his daughter had just been fished out of. Jury’s Verdict-Found Drowned.

57/ Plymouth Cemetery Suicide, May 1864

In an open vault in Plymouth Cemetery, John Manicom committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor. He entered the vault foremost, then hanging by the sides he must have dropped to the bottom, about eight feet. He took off his coat shirt and waistcoat, then slit himself in the neck. He had been suffering from depression for a while. (Which Vault?)

58/ Devon County Gaol Suicide, Exeter, October 1873

A young lad named Robert Harrison, who was serving fifteen months inside with hard labour at the Devon County Gaol for theft at a pawn-shop, committed suicide by hanging. He was part of a gang of thieves, which had virtually been the cause of crime in Exeter, by themselves. When they arrested him he had a flick-knife on him and told officers he’d rather be dead than serve time.

59/ Devon County Gaol Suicide, September 1856

An elderly man named William Aggett had been sent to Princetown, Dartmoor, to face trial for stealing. He thought he’d get off, but his son was sent down for a similar offence at this goal. He began to worry and this caused him to hang himself from a water-pipe in his cell. Aggett had one arm but skilfully managed to tie it across his stomach, with a handkerchief and also his legs. The rope was home-made from oakum. He had not dislocated his neck but choked himself instead, but it proved fatal.

60/ Barnstaple Glutton, December 1885

61/ Plymouth Murder/Suicide, August 1907

Mrs McLoughlin was separated from her husband and worked at the Albion Hotel. Her husband crept into the back of the building with a double-barrelled shotgun and waited for her to appear. The rest of the hotel heard two loud reports, they then ran to the still-room where Mrs McLoughlin lay in a pool of blood and with part of her head blown away. Next to the body was her husband, who had also blown his brains out. William James McLoughlin was charged with “Wilful Murder” and “Felo de Se”. The children stated that the father was a drunkard and a wife-beater, but grew so accustomed to his outbursts that they ignored him in the end.

62/ King’s Arms Hotel Suicide, Salcombe, May 1855

Mr Chapman, the landlord of the Kings Arms Hotel in Salcombe, committed suicide by jumping from a window. It was three stories high and it is amazing that he wasn’t killed instantly. He lingered for a couple of days, then finally died of his injuries.

63/ Newton Abbot Suicide,  July 1879

Elizabeth Hurrell, thirty years old, went for a walk with her husband and kids. The husband left her alone for a few minutes and during this time she gave the door key and the baby to her eight-year-old son and told him to go home and wait for her. They did this, and she walked calmly into the river Teign and making no noise she went under. Everyone is at a loss to explain why she did it.

64/ Okehampton Death, March 1899

65/ Devonport, March 1845 (Soldiers Suicide)

A sound of a gunshot alerted military staff to a sergeant’s mess-room at Devonport Barracks. Two soldiers found him in the room with a gunshot wound to the face. He ‘d been with two others in the room earlier on and he left to go to an adjoining apartment, where he tied his lace to his big toe, then fastened it to the trigger and then pulled it. The contents blew the back of head away. He was named as William Davidson, aged twenty-six.

66/ Cockermouth Sunday School Deaths, March 1832

The Sunday School at Cockermouth saw a frightful accident that resulted in the deaths of two children. Around four-hundred children were in the upper room, for the purpose of hymn-singing. When they left the room, the sheer weight of the youngsters passing through, caused the floor-beam to give way and dozens fell.  Also, the supporting wall collapsed and several were buried under rubble. Two were killed outright and several injured.

67/ Appledore Drownings,  June 1885

68/ Dawlish Cliff Accident, September 1st, 1885

 

69/ Dawlish Cliff Accident, September 2nd, 1885

 

70/ Exeter Poker Suicide, September 1859

A blacksmith from Exeter called Woodgate killed himself in a novel way. He ran a red-hot poker into his body. There was a witness named Searle who just walked off, telling Mr Brown that he just saw a man shove a poker into himself. Brown went to see, but Woodgate was trying it again! Brown caught hold of him and saw four burned wounds in the abdomen. Obviously, Woodgate couldn’t have survived that and he died a couple of days after.

71/ Stoke Suicide, near Devonport, January 1878

Persons passing in front of a villa in Stoke near Devonport saw the corpse of a man hanging from a tree outside the house. The body was cut down and was identified as that of retired tradesman named Keen, who wanted to kill himself in full view of the public. (Is the house still there?)

72/ Lapford, (Reverend John Arundel Radford)

I read somewhere about this unconventional vicar, who used to be a boxer and a wrestler. He was infamous for hardly anyone turning up to his congregations, it was him, the clerk, the sexton and a couple of old locals. He was also a fan of hanging about the city late at night and having a good time. He earned the nickname “Parson Jack”. Also, there is a memorial in the churchyard, which says he murdered his curate but was acquitted by the jury who were scared of sentencing a vicar to death. There was also the curse, that if he wasn’t buried in Lapford church, he’ come back and haunt them. (Is he buried there?)

73/ Plymouth Sound Fatality, May 1885

74/ Devonport, December 1881 (Drowned in Vat of Beer)

George Osborne (no not the Ex-Chancellor!), a middle-aged bloke from Plymouth and a drayman by trade, was found drowned in a vat of beer. This was an act of suicide and what a way to go! Osborne left his hat and watch by the side. He was in court a few weeks ago on the charge of attempted suicide by cutting his throat, but this time he thought of a way to do it, one that would be memorable to all.

75/ Livermead Death, April 1892

 

76/   Langford near Exeter, Accidental Death,  August 1870  (Mrs Bastin was shot also)

 

 

77/ Torquay Fatalities,  September 1870

It is reported from Torquay that at seven o’clock yesterday morning the “traveller”, by which blocks of stone are lowered into the sea, at the extreme end of the new breakwater at Torquay, toppled over, carrying with it a portion of staging and some of the workmen. Two workmen named Strawbridge and Veale were drowned, and two others were so badly injured they were taken to the infirmary. The bodies of the two drowned men were recovered an hour after the horrific accident occurred.

78/   Buckland Monachorum Child Murder,   August 1870.

79/ Newton St Cyres (Gun Fatality)  October 1870

A shocking accident occurred at Newton St Cyres, Devon, on Friday. Mr Passmore, a farmer, was preparing to go out for a day’s shooting with two friends. While drawing the charge from the gun, preparatory to cleaning the weapon, the gun exploded, and the charge entered the forehead, killing him instantly.

80/ Clovelly Boat Death,  November 1870

As a fishing boat named Jim, was on Friday, out in a heavy sea off Clovelly, it suddenly foundered, and the crew, consisting of father and son, were seen clinging to the masts and spars. The lifeboat was launched as soon as possible, but in the meantime, a man named John Whitefield, who was fishing in the vicinity of the accident, cut away his own nets and proceeded to the spot. He succeeded in rescuing the father, who was transferred to the lifeboat, but the younger man was drowned before aid arrived.

81/ Policeman Attacked in Barnstaple,  November 1870  (Did P.C. Jones survive?)

82/ Dartmoor Fatality,  January 1866. (Island of Rock)

83/  Charlotte Winsor (Baby Farmer/ Child Murderess)  February 14th, 1866.

May 24th, 1866

A conditional pardon was yesterday issued from the Home Office commuting the capital sentence passed upon Charlotte Winsor, to one of penal servitude (hard labour)

84/  Fatal Mine Accident, Horrabridge.  May 1866  (Furze Hill Wood Mine)

85/  Drowning near Red Cliff Castle, Paignton.  June 1866

86/ Execution of Husband Poisoner, Mary Ann Ashford, Exeter County Gaol.  March 1866

87/  Devonport Murder?  March 1866

88/ Weird Death at Paignton,  January 1867

A fatal accident occurred at Paignton on Wednesday. Mrs Pethebridge, the wife of a farmer of Marldon, finding her husband late on his return from Newton Market, feared that something had happened to him. She directed a servant to put the horse in the trap and then drove off towards Newton. She had not got a couple of miles when she met her husband on horseback. The horses, knowing each other, stopped suddenly, and Mr Petherbridge, not being very alert and slightly drowsy, was pitched over the horse’s head, and killed on the spot.

89/ Burnt to Death, Millbay, Plymouth. December 1866  (Burnt in boiling tar)

90/ Devonport Murder/Suicide,  March 1867

91/  Fatal Explosion at Stoke Canon,  February 1867

92/ Cruelty at Devon Lunatic Asylum,  January 1867.

93/  Vicars Suicide in Exeter Asylum,  August 1903.

The Reverend Francis John Bleasby, of Tiverton, died at Exeter Asylum on Sunday. On Wednesday week deceased took a strong narcotic and on Friday was certified as a pauper lunatic. The Reverend gentleman, who was forty-eight years of age and unmarried, had latterly developed eccentricities in speech and conduct, and left letters stating that the strain and burden of his life were too much for him.

94/ Fatal Boat Accident at Devonport, October 1903. (The Hamoaze)

95/ Murder of a Policeman, Plymouth.  September 5th, 1903.

Early on Sunday morning, Police Constable Edwin Wilce was called to No.6, Castle Street, Barbican, Plymouth, by screams for help. He entered the house, and a little later his dead body was discovered on the doorstep. Subsequently, Sergeant Rogers, of the Plymouth Police, arrested a merchant sailor on a charge of murdering Wilce, who leaves a widow and children. The deceased was forty years of age and had been in the police force for eighteen years. The deceased constable bears no outward marks of violence, and fatal injury being internal.

Saturday, November 14th, 1903 (The Trial and Verdict)

96/ Three Drown near Paignton,  September 1904.

A boating accident, involving the loss of three lives, occurred in a heavy easterly sea at Torbay, on Sunday night. At dusk, three Brixham fishermen, James McLean, twenty-four, Edward Cridland, sixteen, and sixteen-year-old George Memery, arrived at the pier at Torquay to return in a small sailing boat to Brixham, from which place they arrived in the afternoon. The coastguards stationed at the pier impressed upon the young fellows the great danger that attended their crossing the bay in such a sea, and advised them to postpone the tip. The advice was not taken.  After the Brixham lifeboat had been despatched in search of the empty boat with a hole in it, was washed ashore on Paignton beach.

97/ Paignton Child Murder,  July 1904. (Corpse in a Tin Box)

98/ Fatal Boat Collision in the Hamoaze,  March 1904. (Hamoaze- is a river, part of the Tamar. Apologies for missing a bit at the bottom. Overzealous with the scissors!)

99/  The Babbacombe Murder (Hangman Tells Of His Experience)   April 1905

100/ Suicide of Suspected Murderer,  Hatherleigh.  May 1905

101/ Plymouth Schoolgirl’s Fatal Experiment,  March 1906.

102/ Belstone Housekeeper’s Suicide (Near Okehampton)   April 1906

A sad tragedy occurred early on Saturday on Dartmoor. The housekeeper to the rector of Belstone, a village three miles from Okehampton, who had been nursing her employer, who was stricken with paralysis. The strain of her duties and her apprehension of his death, it is thought, caused her to steal out of the sick room in the night to an outhouse, where she cut her throat from ear to ear. The main arteries were severed, and death must have been instantaneous.

103/ Death on Hood Bridge (now Dart Bridge near Staverton Station)   August 1906.

104/  Dartmouth Borough Surveyor’s Suicide,  November 1906.

105/ Girl Dressed as Boy Drowns Herself, Teignmouth.  November 1906

106/  Plymouth Hotel Murder/Suicide.  August 10th, 1907

Saturday, August 10th, 1907 (Verdict)

A Plymouth jury on Wednesday found that Mary Ann MacLoughlan, who was shot dead on Tuesday in a local hotel where she was employed as a charwoman, was murdered by her husband, William James MacLoughlan, who afterwards shot himself, the verdict in the latter being “felo de se”.

107/  A Message in a Bottle, Teignmouth.   July 1907.

A Teignmouth fisherman picked up a bottle on the beach on Sunday containing a message which purported to be signed by the captain of the ship “Mayflower”. The message was dated, 20th of July, 1906, and stated that the vessel had been on fire for two days, and was burned to the water’s edge. The ship was described as loaded with grain, and the captain sailed from North Shields.

108/  Babbacombe Murderer Hanging 1885, Torquay.  December 1907 (John Lee was due for release, they were reliving his scaffold scenes)

1/ Allestree Church Suicide, near Derby, October 1898

Village postmaster’s wife, Mary Watson, was the church cleaner. In a fit of despondency, she threw herself down a well which is used for the clock weight’s to go into. The well is twenty feet deep and under the church tower and she was found head first in some slurry at the bottom of it.

2/ Ashwood Dale Murder, near Buxton, July 1894

The dead body of a sixty-year-old woman was found on a side road from the above picture. She was lying on her back, with a severe wound on the back of her head, meaning she probably had her back turned to the attacker. The body was on the Ashwood Dale to Staden road, which is not used that often. (Who was she?)

3/ High Tor Fatality, Matlock, November 1886

A single lady named Lock from Dorchester was staying at the Hydropathic Establishment at Matlock Bath and was killed by falling off the above cliff, High Tor Rock, which is about two hundred feet high.

4/ Little Eaton, (Two Boys Drowned), January 1884

5/ Hadfield Murder, near Glossop, October 1880

6/ Derby, June 1885 (Swallowed a Pin)

7/ Bradwell Murder?, June 1885 (Was She Murdered?)

8/ Chesterfield Station, (Child Fatality) June 1868

A coal miner’s daughter named Heenan was killed at Chesterfield Station, in a tragic accident. The six-year-old girl was collecting coal where an engine was shunting some waggons on to a siding. Being only slight in stature, she went unseen by the driver and she was run over by a waggon which nearly cut her head off, but cut her hands off instead. Her body was taken to her home in Waller’s Yard, St Mary’s Gate.

9/ Addington Dale, April 1900 (Two Brothers Killed)

George Bills and John Bills, eighteen and twenty respectively, both butchers assistants in Buxton, left there at 7-40 a.m. on a tandem and headed for Flintham, a village between Nottingham and Newark, for an Easter visit home. Just under an hour later they were in a gravel pit, both dead. The pit at Addington Dale was where they were found and the cause was going over the edge while going too fast. The tandem was brakeless, which explains the speed they were going, especially in Derbyshire where the hills are notoriously steep. Both were removed to Taddington for an inquest.

10/ Glossop Wife Manslaughter, February 1885

11/ Stanton Ironworks Death, March 1854

Henry Smith was a bricklayer who working on top of a furnace at Stanton Ironworks, and this furnace was being blown out so that repairs could be undertaken on a wall which had collapsed. He was on the gas conductor waiting to remove it when it gave way and Smith was dropped into a cauldron of molten liquid. Fellow workers ran to his aid and doused him in cold water. Then two hours later they dragged the furnace but only charred remains were forthcoming. The trunk of his body was the only thing visible on the corpse, arms and legs virtually disappeared. He was a strapping six-footer and fifty-years-old and all colleagues liked the man. He also leaves a missus and eight kids with no father.

12/ Dinting near Glossop, June 1899 (Railway Death)

13/ West Hallam Station Fatalities, October 1884

At West Hallam Station on the Great Northern Railway, a man named Bostock and his wife were killed by a train. They were scurrying across the lines in order to catch the train for home.

14/ Eckington Murder/Suicide, August 1890

15/ Eckington Murder/Suicide, August 1890

16/ Ashover near Chesterfield, February 1879 (Accidental Hanging)

Farmer, David Townrow from Ashover near Chesterfield, committed suicide under a weird set of circumstances. He was obsessed with the Banner Cross murderer, Charles Peace (killed a copper in Manchester then fled to Sheffield and became obsessed with a neighbour’s wife and then shot husband dead. Hanged  on the 25th February 1879, a couple of weeks after this fella.) He couldn’t read so paid people to read the stories of Peace to him. Townrow also had a thing for hanging. He’d shown signs of derangement recently and was watched, but he evaded them he went up to a hayloft and hung himself. (To emulate his hero?)

17/ Wellington Street, Matlock Bank, (Fatal Accident) June 1899

18/ Derby Teacher Suicide, December 1858

Elizabeth Butler was a fifteen-year-old pupil teacher at Trinity Schools, Derby. She committed suicide by drowning herself in the River Derwent and she left a little note in her book saying Goodbye and stating that this was premeditated, as she had had an argument with Miss—, and that the woman had got it in for her. She asked her friends to forgive her, and also hoped God would also forgive her.

19/ Osmaston near Derby, March 1897 (Incest)

At Osmaston near Derby, the body of an unnamed child of which the mother was a sixteen-year-old, named Eliza Taylor. It turned out that the father of the child was the girl’s own father!

20/ Opposite Duffield Church near Derby, May 1871 (Suicide on Railway)

As the train arrived opposite Duffield Church, a smart young lady was seen to gently place herself on the track on which the train was approaching. The train went over her body cutting it in two, and later inquiries produced the name of Kate Green from Brighton. Kate had been staying with a relative in Litchurch Street, Derby, and was of weak intellect. She left the house on Sunday night to go to St Andrew’s Church but never got there.

21/ Derby Murder, April 1880

22/ Repton Mill Murder, February 1899

23/ Repton Child Murder,   April 4th, 1899

24/ Tuebrook, West Derby,  June 1865 (Fatal accident)

25/ Shuttlewood, (between Chesterfield & Mansfield) February 1909 (Gas Explosion)

Four people died in a terrible gas explosion in the colliery hamlet of Shuttlewood. The occupants of the house were asleep in bed when neighbours were woken by a massive report, which shattered windows and destroyed part of the roof.  John Wheldon, formerly a collier at Oxcroft Pit and his son John along with the baby, only a year old, were found dead in one room and the mother, who was shockingly injured, has died at the hospital. Two other children were buried in debris, but are expected to recover and a collier and his son also escaped injury. It is believed to be a gas explosion, but it is not definite.

26/ Whaley Bridge Accident, February 19th, 1885

Whaley Bridge February 25th, 1885

27/ Matlock Bath, (Skeleton Discovered) October 1891

A discovery at Matlock Bath is expected to solve the mysterious death of a visitor. Workmen repairing the roof at Stevens paintworks, situated under High Tor, found a skeleton of a man on a ledge in the rock. The bones were those of a male, who had wandered along the face of High Tor, a five-hundred-foot high rock near the Derwent when he must have fallen and broken his legs. His hat and coat were nearby and death was immediate. A visitor went missing fourteen months ago and was never found. A companion of his said to police he left him near some rocks and saw him robbed of a watch and pushed over a cliff. A search was made at the time, but the rock face was not explored. (Who was he?)

28/ Bolsover Colliery Fatalities, August 1892

29/ Death in Buxton Church, August 1889

Just before service commenced at Buxton Church on Sunday morning, a visitor from Birmingham, named Tamlin aged sixty, was seized with a fit and died immediately after being carried into the porch of the building.

30/ Derby Railway, (Unknown Corpse) August 1889

On the arrival of a return excursion train from Liverpool to Birmingham at Derby on Tuesday, the body of a thirty-year-old man was found in a third class compartment. There were no marks of violence and the man had apparently been dead only a short time. In one of the pockets was the address of a Birmingham hostelry, but on enquiry, by telegraph, it was ascertained that he was unknown there. The body has not yet been identified.

31/ Bradwell Suicide, June 1st, 1885

 

Bradwell June 2nd, 1885

 

32/ Old Nottingham Road Murder, Belper, September 1879

The dead body of Sarah Ann Harrison, wife of Thomas Harrison a horsenail maker, was found in a field next to a wall. It had been there a few days and was soaking wet from the showers the night before. Thomas had to go to work every day and literally walked past his wife’s corpse on those days, he was a couple of yards from her, only a hedge hid the body. The husband really didn’t seem too bothered and never told police an information about her disappearance. Sarah had two daughter’s, one aged sixteen and another aged fourteen, but the two had left home a couple of months since and now live in town. The girls and Sarah’s sister knew nothing. Apparently, she had a miserable life with Thomas and regular beatings were not unheard of, but she was a decent woman and no reason for the murder of her can be attributed to anyone. Also, the husband was the one to find her body first. (Coincidence? Was it Him?)

33/ Chatsworth House Death, September 1885

34/ Aston-on-Trent, February 1897 (Human Remains Mystery)

Seven miles from Derby, three blokes were walking next to the River Trent when they spotted a human trunk lying on the bank. They went and got the village policeman named Haddock, and he examined the human remains. The head, legs and left arm were missing, and the right arm was only partially attached. There is an embankment nearby and it is believed it had washed down from a higher part during the recent floods and had got stuck on the bank. The remains were badly decomposed and had obviously been there for ages.

35/ Folly House Suicide, Darley Field, August 1896

36/ Rivett Street, Derby, December 1900 (Pub Fatality)

Alfred Pegg, the landlord of the Sir Henry Wilmot public house in Rivett Street, Derby, died in the local infirmary on Friday morning from falling into a mash-tub full of boiling water from a piece of board on which he was standing.

37/ River Derwent Drowning, September 1906

While a number of Milford boys were at play one afternoon in a field belonging to Mr Knifton at Swainsley, one of them, Albert Dawson aged five and a half, fell into the River Derwent and was drowned. The lads were swinging on the branches of overhanging trees and Dawson dropped off into deep water.

38/ Matlock Suicide, August 1885

The body of James McFarlane Dickson, a retired gentleman of about forty-years-old, the former superintendent of Covent Garden Market, committed suicide in the bedroom of a house where he was visiting, having shot himself in the mouth with a revolver. He lived in Brixton and used to suffer from religious mania and was here to help with his health problems.

39/ Glossop Drowning Case, August 1885

40/ Woodhead Suicide, March 1885

Some men who were walking by the side of a brook at Woodhead discovered, partly immersed in the water, the dead body of a man named John Green Howard, who had been missing for a week. His legs were tied together and his throat was cut. It is supposed that he committed suicide.

41/ Miller’s Dale near Tideswell July 1885 (Drowned)

An inquest was held at Tideswell touching the death of a young man named William Chapman whose body was taken out of the River Wye at Miller’s Dale. Deceased and some other young men went to bathe in the river at Miller’s Dale. He got out of his depth and although every effort was made by his companions to rescue him, he was carried away in and drowned.

42/ Balmoral House Mystery, Matlock, December 1872

43/ Chesterfield Suicide, December 1861

Mrs Anne Turner, an affluent lady aged fifty, committed suicide at Chesterfield. She had been seeing Charles Harrison, and his begging of late had been a source of annoyance so great that she was afraid to go home. She sent a message one morning to a guy named Middleton, via a boy named Charles Lowe, to say she wanted to see him. When he returned the boy found the door closed so he heaved it open and saw her hanging from a rope, which was fastened to the ceiling and she was facing the wall. He ran for help and neighbours cut her down but she was dead. Turner had put on her best clothes and written a letter saying how her money was too divided. She killed herself because she was scared of Harrison and fed up of him stalking her.

44/ Brewery Street, Chesterfield,  September 1885 (Traction Engine Fatality)

45/ Derby Railway Station Death, October 1850

At 10-30 p.m. at the railway station at Derby, a scruffy man had been hanging about the station yard and staff became suspicious. At the above time the mail train trundled in and the stoker of the train told a policeman that he thought he’d hit something just moments earlier. Police searched the area and found the scruffy man, mangled to bits on the track. All of the carriages ran over him and near his body were three packages, which this thief had stolen from the luggage carriage on the London train. Deceased was unknown.

46/ New Mills Drowning,   May 1885

47/ Matlock, April 1893 (Skeletons Mystery)

During excavations at Matlock were under way, workmen found four human skeletons. Post-mortem examinations prove they are all middle-aged men and were all violently battered to death, proving murder. It was also estimated that they had been buried for about forty years. Near the corpses were found a defaced coin and a pen-knife. (Who were they? Where are they buried?)

48/ Dethick Farm near Matlock,  December 1900 (Sleepwalking Death)

Police discovered the body of a single young man named Newton, at Dethick Farm near Matlock. His body was in an outbuilding and he lay there while his brother was asleep upstairs. The brother says he was unaware of his brother’s death, but one theory is that while sleepwalking he fell and broke his neck.

49/ Melbourne Wife Murder, April 1885

50/ White Hart Pub Suicide, Derby November 1869

Emmanuel and Louisa Victoria Cheeseborough, his thirty-year-old wife ran the White Hart pub in Bridgegate, Derby, for quite some time, but one night were arguing with each other till the early hours. Police were called and they both calmed down and went to bed. Before going to bed, the wife went to her 12-year-old son’s room and said these creepy last words,

“You shall have all I have; I’ll leave to you, for I am going to die”……………………………………..Err! Yeah. Goodnight Mum!

Then she went to the clubroom, drank a liquid with poison in it and went to sleep, where she was found at 2-30 a.m. The coroner said it was the poison that killed her probably vermin killer.

51/ Derby Rifle Range -I think it was 1883? (Forgot to date it)

52/ Bolsover, December 1910 (Three Children Killed)

It was at the level crossing in Bolsover that three children were killed and one injured while trying to cross it. The children had left the cinema show and were on their way home when they tried to cross, a passenger train ran into them. They were kind of in the cross-fire because the Chesterfield train was rushing up one way and the coal train from Lincoln in the other. Some dodged both but three failed in their attempt. The accident was in full view of hundreds of witnesses. One little boy was so badly crushed that only identification will be known when parents call in to say he hasn’t turned up from the show. The other two deaths are a son a daughter of a Carrvale miner named Bacon, both six feet away from the other. The injured boy, who may not come through, was named Yates and from Bolsover. He had an operation on his fractured skull, but it’s not looking good.

Those killed were; George Alfred Boot aged eight, of Hillstown; Mary Margaret Bacon aged nine, of New Bolsover, and Joseph William Bacon, brother of Mary, aged ten. Arthur Yates aged nine, with a fractured skull.

53/ Murder at No.99 Stanhope Street, Derby, July 1906

Three Derbyshire Constabulary policemen heard the shouts of Murder! and Fire!, at midnight. They entered the home of Robert Porteous at 99 Stanhope Street. The husband was badly burned but Mrs Porteous was on fire and they managed to douse the flames and get her out. A paraffin lamp was smashed on the floor and was thrown into the heat of an argument. Mrs Porteous was on her death-bed and her last words were heard by police and the husband. She died shortly after, but as to who threw the lamp, or what her last words were, we’ll never know.

54/ River Derwent, Derby November 1885

55/ Brimington Suicide, September 1886

Eliza Ann Brunt aged seventeen was found dead in the canal at Brimington near Chesterfield. The father treated her with immense cruelty and when he arrived at the inquiry into his daughter’s death, there was a huge groan by the crowd. If the police hadn’t been there he’d have been torn limb from limb. The neighbours and the grandmother gave evidence, saying that Eliza was regularly seen with bruises and a black eye. The day before her death she told her grandmother that her father said he would kill her, and that this would be the last time she’d share a cup of tea with her. The jury expressed their disgust at the father’s treatment, but gave the verdict “Suicide whilst of unsound mind”.

56/ Derby Wife Murder/Suicide, September 1885

57/ Derby, July 1867 (Derwent Suicide)

Maria Smith aged sixteen, of Duke Street, was seeing a young lad from Derby and one day they had a slight tiff. She took it to heart and became very low and despondent. On Sunday evening she asked a friend to go for a walk by the Derwent with her. They went by Darley Grove and came upon the fields near the river and stayed till 9 or 10 o’clock when a few lads noticed her acting strangely. They then spotted her taking off her hat and cape and rolling her sleeves up as if to jump in the river. One of them heard her say “she did not want to go home that night”. The boys urged her to go home and not do anything stupid, but she simply replied: “if she did go home, they would have to carry her.” The lads made a grab for her but she slipped free and dived into the river, then watched her sink down. Police dragged the river and recovered her lifeless body.

58/ Clay Cross Iron Works near Chesterfield, December 1856

A man named Kelly, a labourer at the Iron Works was employed to put stuff in the furnace. A large burning mass fell upon him, burying him up to the middle and it was fully half an hour before they got the poor chap out. The debris had clinkered around him and had to be chiselled away. The pain must have been incredible, and at one point he told them to drown him in the reservoir to relieve him from his misery. The right leg had to be amputated and the other is so bad, that it is feared that it will have to be cut off as well. (Did he survive?)

59/ Trent Station Tragedy, April 1889

 

60/ River Derwent Drowning, Derby, June 1885

61/ Chesterfield Suicide, May 1867

George Gilberthorpe was a sixty-seven-year-old, ex-porter on the Midland Railway, who had been married for a second time to a wife who was much younger than himself. She ruled the roost and often told him she wished he was dead and then she could get his funeral money from the club. One day she turned him out of the house, so he wandered about the streets of Chesterfield for a while and then asked for admission to the workhouse. This was denied. In the meantime, the wife had sold all the furniture and contents of the house and fled with the money, so when he returned home there was an empty shell. One day later a man was passing and saw a hand between the glass and blind, and when police entered they found him hanging by a piece of cord. Inside his pocket was the suicide note, and it read:

“Chesterfield May 1st, 1867- I Joseph Gilberthorpe, do hereby wish that my son, Henry, receive my funeral money from my lodge, and he shall pay what few shillings I owe to James Wilkinson. And he shall have my clothes box, and all other things belonging to me, and from the ingratitude and abuse I have received from my son William, and his wife, and all the rest of his children; and the pride and contempt of my wife and her two sons, their scoffs and frowns, and to be ordered away from the house to seek lodgings elsewhere is more than I can bear, and has driven me to the rash act I have done. May the Lord have mercy on my soul and forgive me in this world, and in the world to come is my sincere prayer. God have mercy upon me. Amen and Amen.”

Nobody ever saw his wife again, and he was declared temporarily insane, by the jury.

62/ Buxton Drownings, January 1887

63/ Derby, Attempted Murder/Suicide, September 1884

64/ Queen Street, Derby – (Fatal Fire) September 1870

65/ Fatal Accident at Long Eaton Station,  December 1870

66/ Horse-riding Fatality, Osmaston Park, Derby.  May 1866

67/  Derby Railway Station Fatality,  November 1866.

68/ Man Buried Alive in Derby,  October 1866  (Osmaston Rd/ Normanton Rd)

69/ Fatal Fire near Matlock,  October 1866  (Hackett Tape Mills)

70/ Murder in Belper, December 1866. (The murder took place at Chapel Hollow. St John’s Road was better known as Chapel Hollow in the 19th century)

71/  Wife Murder near Stony Middleton,  March 1867

72/ Fatal Family Argument in Chesterfield,  June 1903. (Prospect Place, Stonegravels)

73/  Temple Normanton Murder,  December 1903. (Murder of Frances Rawton, servant girl)

19th December 1903.

A reprieve has been received in the case of Samuel Redfern, twenty-five, waggoner, who was given the death sentence for the murder of Frances Rawson, the sixteen-year-old domestic servant, employed at the same farm at Temple Normanton. The jury recommended him to mercy on account of his weak intellect. The Home Secretary commuted the death sentence to one of penal servitude for life.

74/ Father Murders His Two Children, Mosborough,  May 1904.

75/ Fatal Colliery Accident- Swanwick Colliery,  March 1904.

An accident which occurred at Swanwick Colliery in Derbyshire, yesterday morning, in which three miners were killed- Samuel Haycock, John Cope and William Topham. In the company of others, they were descending the pit when the cage suddenly stopped-it is believed through some defect. The men were jerked out and fell a distance of over seventy yards (over 200 feet) The others managed to hold on and were rescued an hour later. The men who lost their lives were all married. Cope had no children, but Haycock leaves eight and Topham left thirteen.

76/ Three Killed in Skating Accident at Osmaston,  January 1904.

Rose Selwood, aged twenty-one, and her young man George Patterson, aged twenty-nine, and Sidney Sanders were drowned skating on Osmaston dead waters at Derby.

77/ Suicide in the Cromford & Langley Canal,   September 1905.

78/ John Silk, Chesterfield Murderer (Execution Date)  December 1905.

79/ Suicide of a Girl at Bamford Mill Dam,  August 1905.

80/ Chesterfield Wife Murder.   December 10th, 1906

Friday, December 28th, 1906 (Execution of Walter Marsh)

Walter Marsh, aged thirty-nine, an ex-sergeant in the North Staffordshire Regiment, was hanged at Derby Gaol yesterday morning for the wilful murder of his wife, at Chesterfield, on July 9th. Pierrepoint, of Bradford, was the executioner, and Ellis, of Rochdale, assisted him. The prisoner, who acknowledged the justice if his sentence, died penitent. (His wife was about seventeen years his junior. Due to the weather in Derby in December, a pathway was cleared in the snow for the procession to the scaffold.)

81/  Lift Tragedy at Empire Hotel, Buxton.  September 1906 (Off Park Road. Was opened in 1903, then demolished in 1964)

82/ Glossop Murderer Reprieved,  March 31st, 1906. (George Alfort Smith murdered his auntie)

83/ Signalman Blamed for Deaths at Tapton Junction, near Chesterfield.   December 1906

84/  Three Killed at Moscar.  August 1907. (The three victims were:- Benjamin Handley and Hugh Fearn, who were both married men, and five-year-old William Harrison. Dore Moor Inn, the car was examined and chauffeur said it wouldn’t go properly. At Moscar Top the car went a bit better, but while overtaking it went into a gutter and struck a telegraph pole. Moscar is five miles from Sheffield)

85/  Execution of Chesterfield Murderer, Derby Gaol.  July 1907 (William Edward Slack)

86/  Murder of a Sheriff’s Officer, Barlborough, near Chesterfield.   March 1907

87/ Railway Fatality at Little Chester, Derby.  November 1880

88/  Wife Murdered by Husband, Hadfield, near Glossop.  October 4th, 1880

Tuesday, 9th November 1880.

At Glossop Police Court, yesterday, Albert Robertson, twenty-one, spinner, was committed for trial for the murder of his wife at Hadfield, on the 2nd of October, by cutting her throat. The prisoner afterwards attempted to commit suicide.

89/  Death at Midland Railway Station, Derby.  December 1st, 1880

Wednesday, 2nd December 1880.

The inquest came to the conclusion that she had died from disease of the heart and that any sudden anxiety would be sufficient to bring on fatal symptoms. The verdicy of the jury was “that deceased died from heart disease accelerated by fright”

1/ Workington, (Painful Suicide) May 1890

James Hadfield had recently lost his wife and took to drinking heavily with depression setting in as a result. Instead of jumping in front of a train or shooting himself, he shoved a lady’s hairpin through his throat and smashed himself over the head with a broken glass. It must have been painful, but it worked as he died an hour later.

2/ Dalton-in-Furness Cemetery Suicide, June 1893

James Holmes a publican, was found hanging from a tree in the cemetery in Dalton-in-Furness. He had been suffering from depression and had been drinking heavily too.

3/ Whitehaven Boating Accident,  July 1882

Windermere (Accidents and Suicide)

4/ Windermere Ferry Disaster, October 1635

A wedding party had been to Hawkshead and the market, when they clambered aboard the ferry and set off, it foundered and sank drowning everyone on board, a total of forty-eight passengers and crew. It was down to bad weather and packing too many on the ferry.

5/ Windermere Fatality, December 1878

A man called Tomlinson was making the journey from Bowness to Cunsey in a boat when the steamer “Firefly” tore into the side of his craft. He flailed around in the water when he got caught in the paddle-wheel and was churned it. He was a retired leather merchant in Stockport and was killed on the spot.

6/ Windermere Vicar Suicide, November 1894

A vicar from Leicester made the trip up to the Lake District to kill himself. Reverend T.Pearse Tretheway left a book on his lifeless body and inside was this;-

“I have come to the solitude of Scawfell and the glorious lake mountains, which I have so often admired, To escape from my troubles and to end my days, to die by sweet Windermere. My dear wife, forgive me for what I have done”.

I was going to say he had a tough parish, but it was all down to finances again. The verdict was “Suicide while temporarily insane”

7/ Lake Windermere, August 1873 (Five lives lost)

Mr Cooper from Crewe had retired here and intended to take it easy. He hired a sailing skiff at Bowness and the idea was to splash about the lake for a day and watch the yacht race. He took his wife, her sister(Miss Bateman) and a page named Robert Killett who was only fourteen, along with a twenty-one-year-old boatman, George Holmes. They went out at nine a.m.and at about one p.m.they landed on the Lancashire side and had lunch at the Ferry Hotel. The weather made a turn for the worse, the wind got up and it began to rain. George Holmes told Cooper not to sail the skiff in such conditions, but he ignored the advice, instead, following the yachts in the race. A sudden downpour and movement in the boat caused it to capsize sending all the occupants into the lake. A lone man spotted them in trouble and he raised the alarm. They searched but found nobody, as it was in 120 feet of water. Next day they dragged the lake and Miss Bateman was the only body to be found. Mr and Mrs Cooper were only thirty years old, but they left a one-year-old infant with no parents.

8/ Lake Windermere, October 1890

Robert Fulton Lang had an operation at the beginning of the year, so his health was precarious, to say the least. Also, his investments had gone wrong, so the two things coupled together made him a manic depressive. He drowned himself in the lake as a solution to his problems. “Suicide whilst temporarily insane.”

 

Grasmere Lake.

9/ Grasmere Drownings

Two fourteen-year-old boys, William Hudson Usher and Thomas Birkett were drowned when they were sent on an errand. They took a shortcut by getting in the boat and going across the lake. They gave their message and disaster struck when they both slipped into the lake. “Accidental Death” was the verdict.

10/ Grasmere Lake Drowning, July 1866

A young bloke from London, by the name of Elyas, went out on the lake in a hired boat from the Prince of Wales Hotel and headed south of the island to bathe. He jumped in, swam about for a bit, then he screamed for help, due to cramp, then sank like a stone before anybody could get to him. His body was fished out later that day.

11/ Thirlmere, June 1908 (Traction Engine Accident)

A traction engine and two caravans toppled down an embankment, on a road that was not fit for traffic. The two young men who were on the traction engine, Thomas Hector Allen aged twenty-two, and Francis Wood aged twenty-six, from Kings Lynn,  were catapulted a hundred and fifty feet down the slope, and the engine went into the east side of Thirlmere Lake.

12/ Greenodd Drowning, September 1906 (Drowning)

13/ Halstead House Fatality, Ullswater, September 1906

14/ Thornyscale Fatal Accident, October 1897

 

Derwentwater Deaths

15/ Derwentwater Drowning, September 1877

A law student from London, by the name of Dixon, and the son of Mrs Bell of Derwentwater Hotel in Portenscale, was drowned in the lake. In trying to take his turn to row, he rose from the seat and the boat toppled over and in he fell. The other person in the boat rowed around looking for him but couldn’t find him, so went ashore to report the accident. His body was found the next day. There is a coincidence here, by the fact that thirty-three years ago (1844) his father was drowned in Derwentwater in the same way.

16/ Derwentwater Boat Fatality, July 1882

A day-tripper from Egremont, named Richard Clark, was drowned in Derwentwater due to the boat they’d hired becoming full of water. The two other men with him managed to get rescued, but Clark’s body has not been found yet.

17/ Derwentwater, August 1898 (Five Ladies Drowned)

An unfortunate accident on Derwentwater led to the deaths of five young women. The boatman said to the customers that the boat could take eight passengers, when in fact six was the maximum. As there were three men and five women in the craft, one of them changed seat from bow to stern. Later on, one of the girls lost a satchel, so they stopped rowing in a bid to get it back. The boat then began to sink (overladen on one side?). The lasses were struggling but the oars were used to help them and eventually they came back to the lads, who were rescued by two men.The girls were all from Nelson in Lancashire and all members of the National Home Reading Holiday. The capsizing of the boat occurred just after passing out of St Herbert’s Island. Their names were:-

Mary Alice Smith, Mary Jane Smith, Nancy Pickles, Helena Clegg and Frances Crossley.

18/ Maryport, (Six Lives Lost) September 1878

19/ Sprunston Child Murder, near Carlisle, November 1881

20/ (Embleton) Bassenthwaite Murder, April 1860

It was actually at Embleton on Bassenthwaite Lake! The woman in question was a servant to Mr Thomas Fearon, a farmer who resided at Beck House in Embleton. She went by the name of Graham and one day the master and mistress of the house went to Cockermouth, leaving Graham in charge. Some men employed by Mr Leather of the Royal Oak Hotel in Keswick and a Mr Ladyman, a spirit merchant, went to Beck House and had dinner there after carting some hay there. They left and she was all alone except for a farm servant named John Cass. At 3-30 a neighbour found the place quiet and derelict. They wondered where she was and went to the kitchen. There she lay, with a brush and black lead in her hands (for cleaning the grate), and her throat cut from ear to ear. The murderer had tried to be clever and make it look like suicide, by putting a knife in her hand. The knife was in a reverse position, the back away from the wrist, and she had suffered severe bruising on her arms suggesting murder and the wall had bloodstains on it, resembling a man’s palm print. Cass was arrested.

21/ Bassenthwaite Lake Skating Fatalities, December 1879

Thirty-one-year-old Joseph Bolton, and Emily Watson, of Cockermouth, were both drowned on Bassenthwaite Lake when the ice gave way while they were skating.

22/ Kendal, (Attempted Murder/Suicide) January 1890

23/ Carlisle Execution, March 1892

24/ Millom Police Station Suicide, August 1910

Inspector Thomas Smith was the boss at the Millom station of Cumberland Constabulary. He was on duty one night, then went back to Millom police station to do some work there. He had been gone quite a while and other constables were asking his whereabouts, but nobody knew. They looked around for him and found the ante-room locked. They broke the door down and saw him hanging from a noose. He left a wife and six kids. He also left a note saying why he did it:-

“I cannot stand this persecution any longer. I have been persecuted by the chief-constable for over two years. The contents of the letter will explain.” The Chief-constable mentioned in the letter, Mr P.Church, denied the accusations but stated that Smith had been given a warning by him for neglect of duty. Verdict “Suicide during temporary insanity”

25/ St Aidan’s Vicarage, Carlisle, (Baby Left at Door) January 1910

The vicar of St Aidan’s church in Carlisle, the Rev.F.L.H.Millard found a new-born baby boy in a brown parcel on his doorstep at the vicarage. The child was taken to the workhouse to be looked after for the time being and has been given the appropriate name of Thomas Aidan Carlisle.

26/ Workington Mystery, March 1882

On the road leading to the steelworks in Workington, there appeared a heap of stones, and beneath them lay the body of 17-year-old Lucy Sands, who’d been missing three or four months. It was found in a terribly mutilated condition and was found at 10 a.m. one morning by a stone breaker who was just starting work. It remained unidentified for a while due to its poor condition and an inquest will open soon. (Did they find the murderer?).

27/ Belltash Wood Suicide, Windermere, January 1889

In Belltash Wood, about a mile from the Ferry Hotel, Windermere, a body of a well-dressed gentleman was discovered. He had a revolver with two chambers loaded out of the six chambers and it had been there some considerable time. The skull had fallen from the trunk and it was just bones. Identification would be near impossible but suggested it could be a visitor to the area who shot himself.

28/ Distington, (Naughty Vicar) October 1885

Distington, November 1885 (Naughty Vicar)

29/ Carlisle, December 1870 (Two Dead Infants in a Box)

In September, a small box only eighteen inches long wrapped in light paper, with the address “Mr Thompson, Royal Hotel, Carlisle, to be left till called for” arrived at the train station. It stayed there for over two weeks and no one claimed it, so it was sent to Euston Station as unclaimed baggage. Nearly three months after it was sent it was opened, and to the horror of the clerk, it had two dead children in it. There is no Royal Hotel in Carlisle and should have been “County Hotel.” The infants were sent to St Pancras Workhouse and examined. The boy was aged two to three and the girl aged four to six months, and they’d clearly died from violence. It is now a case of double murder.

30/ Low Row (Body Discovered) July 1887

A shocking discovery was made at Low Row, Cumberland. A young man by the name of John Tomlinson, who was a former tenant at a farm at Belle Vue, Carlisle, vanished. His body was found in a quarry a few days later. His face had been eaten away by insects so was not easily identified. He had gone out looking for ferns and fell down in the quarry.

31/ St Bees Student Killed, March 30th, 1885

St Bees Fatality, March 31st, 1885

32/ River Eden near Carlisle, August 1887 (Detective Suicide)

Detective-sergeant George Purbrook of R Division in the Metropolitan Police which was stationed at Deptford made the long journey to Cumbria to commit suicide. His body was in the River Eden near Carlisle and was found by police after a man came into the station with his hat and some papers, and said he’d found them on the banks of the river. In a notebook was written:

“Please telegraph to the Superintendent McHugo, Blackheath, London. He is the Superintendent of Greenwich Division. Kind love to wife and children and relatives. Oh! My poor head! Ask McHugo if he will recommend my children for the orphanage. God forgive me!”.

Police in London hadn’t heard from him until Cumberland police told them of his death. Purbrook had the onset of rheumatism and was scared of the police drafting him out. “Suicide while temporarily insane” was the verdict.

33/ Near Dalton Railway Station, July 1885

34/ Dalton Railway Station, August 1885

35/ The Helm near Kendal, (Suicide Found after Two Years) December 1909

On the Helm near Kendal in a smallpox hut, a body of a man was discovered with his head blown away by a shotgun. What is unusual about this case, is that he’d been missing for nearly two years! He was William Dawson a highway superintendent for Westmoreland County Council and the gun was next to his body. The body itself was in a condition that suggested it had been there two years. He was last seen in January of 1908 in Kendal.

36/ Gatebeck Explosion, near Kendal, June 1885

An explosion occurred some miles from Gatebeck near Kendal. Two men, it is reported, were killed and several injured. The accident is attributed to blasting operations.

37/ Silloth Drownings, July 1885

Two young men-one named Brown, one a banker’s clerk from Carlisle and the other, the second son of the Rev.W.A.Wrigley, Congregationalist minister-were bathing in the sea at Silloth, when they got into a strong current and both were drowned.

38/ Barrow-in-Furness Murder, December 26th, 1885

 

December 29th, 1885    Barrow Wife Murder

The coroner held an inquest on the body of Mrs Baines, who was stabbed by her husband on Christmas Day. He was charged with wilful murder. Evidence disclosed states that Baines borrowed the butcher’s knife for his murderous purpose and sharpened it in order to be sure.

39/ Millom Ironworks (Dreadful Accident) May 1899

William Brown a stoker, met with a dreadful death at Millom Ironworks. He was engaged with an engine-driver in shunting some waggons on the pier. He got off the engine and went around the bogey end and was next seen under the wheels, when several waggons passed over him, cutting him in two. He was married last month.

40/ Low Gill Train Death, April 1899

41/ Derwentwater Drownings, August 1885

This should be further up the list, sorry!

42/ Bush Hotel, Carlisle, February 1860 (Still there, but boarded up)

In mid-March 1859, a large box was dropped off at the Bush Hotel, by a porter from Caledonian Railway Co. The postmark was from Paisley in Scotland and the address was “This side up- Mrs Loudon Bush hotell, Carlisle”…spelled like this, not an error. As is usual in these cases nobody claimed the package and it was moved about for nearly ten months. Meanwhile, a Mrs Loudon was found and asked to pick up the parcel at the Bush Hotel. Her niece picked it up for her and opened it to see if it was for her auntie. A little coffin was inside and in the coffin was the corpse of a child, well-dressed with a cap on its head. It was taken to the police, who are trying to gain information on who the child is. The body was badly decomposed, due to nearly a year of internment and only the hair could give any details as to whether it was male or female. It had a boy’s haircut and was about three years old. (Was identity ever discovered?)

43/ Windermere Drownings, June 1899

44/ Ramsden Dock Fatality, Barrow, June 1899

Albert Louis Mesteraged twenty-three, a blacksmith, was along with his brother bathing in Ramsden Dock, Barrow. They were leaving the water by means of the steps when Albert suddenly fell backwards into the dock and sank. His brother made several unsuccessful attempts to rescue him. Dragging operations were commenced, but only after three hours hard work was the body recovered.

45/ Dry How, August 1854 (Father Scythes Daughter)

John Hyslop was a mower by trade and he was busy scything in a field with his little five-year-old girl for company. He was scything one piece of land when he took a wider arc than normal and the scythe cut his girl’s neck, on her jugular vein. Any deeper and the cut would have been instantaneous death. (Did she survive?)

46/ Lake Windermere Fatality, August 1885

47/ Lake Windermere Boat Accident, September 1885

48/ Wetheral Bridge Suicide, near Carlisle, November 1881

As a train approached Wetheral, on the Newcastle to Carlisle section of the North-Eastern Railway and was just crossing the bridge over the Eden, a busker opened the door of the carriage and leapt out into the river. He had been busking at a fair and was drunk, and had already told someone that he’d jump out of the train. Two of his fellow passengers tried to prevent his actions but he wrangled himself free. He is unknown and the body hasn’t been recovered yet. (Bridge still there?)

49/ Furness Abbey Suicide, May 1869

Mr John Wren was the new landlord of Cavendish Arms Hotel in Dalton, but for some reason, he killed himself after only a week. He was seen to enter the tunnel at Furness Abbey and at eleven o’clock that night, a train going through ran over him, totally decimating his body. Before the train cut him to bits, he slit his throat and this caused death within minutes of the collision with the train. Police found a couple of knives in the tunnel near the corpse. He leaves a wife and child. (Small tunnel right near the railway station, covered in branches and ivy.)

50/ Moss Bay Point Shipwreck, September 1885

51/ Carlisle Old Brewery Co., Carlisle, June 1899 (Drowned in Cask of Port)

52/ Scafell Pike, October 1908 (Two Brothers Killed)

In this case, it was known as Scawfell Pike and is England’s highest mountain.(Nearly 1000 metres high).

Two brothers, F.Adam Sprules from Sheffield, and A.W.Sprules from Saltburn-on-Sea arrived at Wastdale and booked into a hotel and the following couple of days went climbing with no problems at all. Midweek they went up Scawfell Pike and were expected back the same day. The next day a search party went up the mountain and when they reached the cairn, to the memory of J.W.Robinson, they had dinner. While nibbling on a sarnie they saw a rope suspended in the vicinity of the North Climb. They went to the rope and found the two brothers, stiff as a board. They took F.Sprules back to the hotel and had to leave A.W.Sprules till the next day. (The other story of Scafell Pike is in December of 1893 when Professor Marshall was killed when he fell down the Pike. -Jupp, Broadrick, Garrett, and Ridsdale fell while climbing it. The first three were killed outright, but Ridsdale was rescued but died when on the way down and this was in September 1903.)

53/ Barrow Docks Bridge Death, August 1885

54/ Cockermouth Cycling Fatality, June 1899

55/ Citadel Station Suicide, Carlisle July 1865

A woman named Eddy committed suicide at the Citadel Station, when she waited for a train to approach the station, then lay face down on the tracks. The guard irons caught her and flipped her over, then the three carriages passed over her body. A verdict was returned of “Temporary Insanity”.

56/ Laithes Hall Fatality, near Penrith, May 1850

Mr Orridge, Governor of Carlisle Gaol, went on a visit to Laithes Hall and stayed up till eleven p.m., then retired to bed. At around three a.m.he got up and wandering about in the dark, he fell over the bannister, onto the solid hall floor, sixteen feet below. Mr Parkin heard the commotion and groans of the victim and found him lying there. Orridge died four days later, but when asked about the incident he couldn’t remember anything between leaving his room and impact of the floor. (Sleepwalking seems likely?)

57/ Whitehaven Deaths, September 1885

58/ Carlisle-River Eden, October 1871 ( Suicide Diary) WEIRD*

This one is really freaky-deaky. Samuel Howard jumped off a bridge at Carlisle into the Eden and he left a diary of his suicide.

“Sunday, September 24th. Life, as it is, is a word without meaning, and not worth experiencing in it’s best form. Why? It is only waiting to be dissolved, live as we like. I consider a man capable of being extinct when he is dissatisfied with everything- in fact, ending his own personality. A man of a strong and determined mind is capable of executing any deed, as far as regards nerve. So, all suicides are not cowards. A coward would rather kill another than himself. Cowardice always dies a natural death.”

This entry was written while looking at the river.

“19th. I am not adapted to all intellectually, and would like to live an honest life and have pretty well, so far; but I see everything looks not worth living for. Oh, how I should like to be a sociable thing, but I cannot be, properly speaking now. Looking down on these smooth waters, I fancy they are adapted for the easiest way to leave this world full of woe-a continual warfare to try to exist. But what Folly! We will have to go at last. Now, I can swim, and when I plunge I don’t want to get out alive again. Anybody is welcome to take me out if they please, but I hope not alive. Oh, what folly to become old and decrepit-useless, in everybody’s way. Oh, corrupt world it is a disease of the human family. I write rather bad but never mind, it will soon be all over. Now my end is approaching, it don’t seem hard to me. It will save me a deal of trouble in the next as far as regards future existing towards a dissolution, and it may as well be now as a hundred years hence.

Now some like a memorial after death, but such is the vanity of vainglorious beings. Well may Darwin-yes, Mr Darwin may call us naturalised monkeys. You will be monkeys when you cannot call yourselves to recollection. Is the last word spelled right? What do you think of it? I mean humanity at large. My watch will stop according to station time the moment I enter the water.

Oh Dear: but death has lost its fear to a certain extent, but it is harsh to cause one’s own dissolution. O, that I was never born! I must finish this, my thoughts ensign, and consign myself those dreadful waters. I would much rather die and sleep now. I came to Carlisle last Monday week. I live for nothing. I wish my gold watch to be given to my father, black suit, four gold studs, gold ring, and gold watch and chain on the watch. I have a pound on me, and that’s for the man who picks me up Goodbye.”

This had been added before his last hurrah…….! Six minutes to eleven. I called in here, at the Crown Inn, Sauwix. A little brandy to warm me before I get cold; and here I saw an old dame, lame; a cat with its tail cut off, lifting himself upon his hind legs, to open the door with his paws; a girl with clogs clatters all over; a hump-backed woman says the weather will be hot in a minute. Here she is. She looks as if she had been dragged through a sick hospital. This is the Crown Hotel.

The last entry made, must have been while on the bridge……..”This poor old man, Edward Allen, I met poverty struck. I gave him the last money I have, and this book to the authorities. He is the owner of the last pound I have. Don’t take it from him- Samuel Howard.”

59/ River Derwent Drowning near Keswick, June 1899

60/ The Solway Drowning, June 1899

61/ Shap: Lovers Suicide, April 1873

A young lady from Kirkbride, Cumbria, killed herself by putting her head on the train tracks near the village of Shap, and let the engine run over her frail little body. The reason for this was that she became despondent because she hadn’t heard from her sweetheart. This would seem to be true, from the fact that the sweetheart himself committed suicide in exactly the same way. A train driver was coming into Brayton terminus and he saw the figure of a man put his head on the tracks. He tried to stop the engine but he cut his head clean off and the remains were taken to Brayton station. The man’s name was Colson.

62/ Hodbarrow Mining Co., Millom (Two Miners Killed)  September 1870

63/ Barrow Docks Deaths,   August 1870

64/  St Nicholas Junction Collision, Carlisle (Five Killed)    July 1870

                                                                      August 3rd, 1870    Inquest into Carlisle Railway Accident

65/ Millom Mining Accident  October 1870  (Hodbarrow Mines- two killed)

66/  Armathwaite Fatal Riot,  18th October 1870  (See No 67 below also)

67/  Armathwaite Murder (see above, No 66)  October 31st 1870

68/ Aldersceugh Poisoning, December 1866  (Aldersceugh Cottage north of Bothel is the only sign of the hamlet that used to be)

69/ Violent Deaths in Carlisle, January 1867.

70/  Rail Disaster near Penrith,  February 1867  (Two Killed)

71/  Levens Skeletons,  March 1867

72/ Fatal Accident on Scafell,  December 1903. (See No.52 for another Scafell Death)

73/ Fatal Explosion at St Helen’s Colliery, Workington.  January 8th, 1904

Saturday, January 9th, 1904.

Two miners were killed and seventeen others injured by an explosion at St Helen’s Colliery, Workington, on Thursday night. The body of one man, Hoodless, has not yet been recovered. The horses have been brought out of the pit and the fire has been bricked in, but some days will probably elapse before the fire is extinguished. Mr Scoular, Mr Martin, secretary of the Cumberland Coal Owners’ Association, Mr Morrison, the manager, and the rest of the injured are making satisfactory progress.

74/  Infanticide at Cavendish Dock, Barrow-in-Furness.  January 1904.

75/ Man Killed on “The Haystacks”, Buttermere.  July 1904

76/ Four killed in Warship Explosion, Barrow-in-Furness.  September 1906  (The 15,000-ton cruiser “Rurik” was launched on November 1906, out of service in 1919, and then scrapped in 1930)

77/ Murder of an Aunt in Millom.  April 13th,1907

A shocking murder was committed on Tuesday at Millom, Cumberland, by a miner named Allen Kennedy. Kennedy, who had only been married six weeks, lived with his aunt, a Mrs Hunter, of private means, in Albert Street, Millom. The aunt and Kennedy and his wife, who got on very amicably together, were sitting in the kitchen, when Kennedy suddenly rose and attacked Mrs Hunter with a razor, causing a terrible and fatal wound. Kennedy was formally charged at the local police-court on Wednesday with killing and murdering Hunter and was remanded until Saturday. Asked if he had any reason to show why he should not be remanded, the accused replied, “No, I suppose I have not. I’ll wait until Saturday.”

Saturday, April 27th 1907 (Murder of Elizabeth Hunter)