Kerrywood Research

A Curious Death, or The Dangers of Victorian Plumbing

22/10/2012

James Crace was a Londoner and worked in a senior role at the GPO for 27 years, until his death at Canal Terrace, Islington, in 1867.

The Crace family genealogy, written by his niece Elizabeth Smith, tells us that James 'met with his death by suffocation, whilst repairing a bath at his residence'.

My curiosity was piqued. How does one suffocate in a bath? The death certificate does not elucidate, and there are no surviving coroner's records for this part of Middlesex. But two newspaper reports of the inquest, accessed via The British Newspaper Archive, provide some background.

On 2 May 1867, the London Standard reported:
EXTRAORDINARY DEATH. -- Yesterday afternoon Dr. Lankester held an inquiry at the City of York, York-road, King's-cross, relative to the death of James Crace, 47 years of age. The deceased was the overseer of the bag department at the General Post Office, and on Monday morning last he rose at half-past six for the purpose of repairing a bath as an amateur. At a quarter to nine, as he did not appear at the breakfast table, search was made for him by his wife and daughter, when the former found him shut in the bath, with a brazier burning charcoal, the button of the lid having given way, and fastened him in. He was dead. The brazier was red hot. It being shown that there was no reason for his committing suicide by the French mode, a verdict of Accidental Death was recorded.

The Reading Mercury of 4 May, reporting on 'singular suicides', seemed less than happy with the verdict:
... the circumstances were, to say the least, suspicious. The deceased, James Crace, aged 47, had shut himself in a bath with a pan of charcoal, and had died from its fumes. The extenuating circumstance was, that the fastening of the door might have been unintentional, and that it could not be opened from the inside.

Once again, failing any coroner's records, the newspapers come up trumps.

Nevertheless, the scenario is hard to envisage. A bath with a lid that fastens, with sufficient space for a man to shut himself inside (accidentally or not) and become asphyxiated by fumes from the charcoal brazier? I've not found any picture or description of a lidded Victorian bath that fits the bill. Any offers?

Late Victorian Plumber's Workshop at Weald & Downland Museum (photo: Anguskirk - Creative Commons)

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The fuller picture

20/10/2012

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The death duty register for Benjamin Croot (IR 26/1765, see below) shows the value of his estate sworn under £4000, to be divided (after a few small bequests) between his six children, all named in the register. In November 1847, a year after his death, each received £564 6s. 9d, equating to over £33,000 in today's values (via TNA currency converter).

This considerable inheritance probably explains how Charles Hawkins (Benjamin's son-in-law) was able to set himself up in business as a wine cooper by 1851. The Hawkins family had little money. Charles was formerly a porter, and his change of occupation had previously been puzzling.

So this has been a useful exercise in showing how different types of record -- census, newspapers, wills and death duties -- can complement each other in fleshing out the bare bones of family history.

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Benjamin's Bequests, or The Value of Wills

11/10/2012

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In his will written in April 1846 (National Archives, PROB 11/2048), seven months before his unhappy demise described below, Benjamin Croot left legacies to his six children. He helpfully named them as Benjn, Mary Ann, Margratt, Elizabeth H., Alfred and Adalad (his spellings). Marriages and census returns have now been pinpointed for most of them, as well as likely death/burial records for those older children for whom baptisms had been found but who aren't mentioned in the will.

Apart from a sum of £100 for his son-in-law Charles Hawkins, to help him set up a 'little shop of business', the amount of each bequest was left blank in the register copy of the will. So my next port of call is the death duty register, to check out the value of Benjamin's estate and establish who received what. The index to death duty registers (IR 27 at the National Archives, accessible at Find My Past) provides me with the volume (1) and folio number (43) that I'll need to look for in the register for 1847, which is spread between four pieces. The folio reference leads, via Discovery, to piece IR 26/1765, which is now on my lookup list for Kew.

As regards Benjamin's origins, the 1841 census tells us only that he was born outside Middlesex. But the will gives us the names of his surviving siblings -- brothers Thomas, Henry and William Croot and a sister Mary Garratt. Taken together, they point to some likely antecedents for Benjamin Croot, in Bedfordshire.

Wills can be specially valuable for London research. For centuries the capital has acted as a magnet, its employment prospects attracting people from all over the country. Many of those who feature in our research were born, like Benjamin, in the 1780s and died in London before 1851, without leaving us a record of their place of birth. Finding the origins of these ancestors can be a real challenge. But a will may narrow down the options, by naming relatives whose place of birth can be identified, or by locating land or property 'back home'. A really informative will can serve as an effective battering-ram against this particular brickwall, so often encountered in London research.

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Suicide in the Barbican

9/10/2012

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St Giles Cripplegate

Yesterday I came across one Benjamin Croot, a licensed victualler, whose daughter Margaret married into a Hawkins family that I'm researching. Whenever I find a distinctive or unusual name, I ransack the newspapers for more information, both The British Newspaper Archive and the 19th Century British Library Newspapers database (accessible free at home 24/7 via my local library membership).

I'd already tracked Benjamin Croot through the parish registers and 1841 census, up to his death in 1846 and probate in 1847, so this time I wasn't expecting much, but I was in for a shock ...

The Standard (17 November 1846)
HORRIBLE SUICIDE IN BRIDGEWATER-SQUARE Yesterday considerable excitement prevailed in the immediate vicinity of Bridgewater-square, Barbican, in consequence of a dreadful case of self-destruction committed the previous night by a gentleman named Benjamin Croot, who resided at No. 7 in the square. It appears that the deceased until very recently held a lucrative situation at Harmer and Pearson's, distillers, Red-cross-street, Cripplegate, but having left that house, he had entered into the business on his own account, and was erecting a distillery a few miles from town. During the last week or two a marked change had taken place in his manner. On Sunday night, between ten and eleven o'clock, whilst his daughter was in one of the lower rooms, she was alarmed at hearing a heavy fall in the apartment in which her father was. She immediately repaired to the spot, when an awful spectacle presented itself: her unfortunate parent was found on the floor, with a frightful wound at the lower part of the body, which he had inflicted by plunging a sword into himself. A medical gentleman was promptly in attendance, but death speedily ensued. It appears that, to accomplish his object, the deceased had first cut himself over the bowels, and afterwards placed the handle of the sword on the floor, and then have thrown himself on to the point of the blade.

The inquest was held, as usual, in a nearby pub.

The Standard (18 November 1846)
THE DREADFUL SUICIDE IN BRIDGEWATER-SQUARE Last evening, Mr. W. Payne, city coroner, held an inquest at the George, Beech-lane, Barbican, on the body of Mr. Benjamin Croot, aged 59, the particulars relative to whose death appeared in the Standard yesterday. The only additional fact given in the evidence was with reference to his state of mind, from which it appeared that the leaving of his former employ, where he had been for so many years, for the purpose of commencing business on his own account, had so depressed him in spirits (from fear that he should not be able to carry it on), that Mr. Conison, surgeon, Old Jewry, was called in by his friends. The jury returned a verdict of Temporary Insanity.

The jury's verdict allowed Benjamin Croot a burial in consecrated ground. He was interred at the church of St Giles Cripplegate on 22 November.

This will be one to chase up in the coroners' records at LMA. They hold an almost complete run of reports and depositions for the City of London and the Ancient Borough of Southwark. Otherwise, relatively few records survive for the Middlesex and Surrey coroners' districts at this period (Westminster excepted). That is where newspaper reports like this really come into their own.

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A Curious Death, or The Dangers of Victorian Plumbing

The fuller picture

Benjamin's Bequests, or The Value of Wills

Suicide in the Barbican

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