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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Yorkshire (West Riding) => Topic started by: suttontrust on Wednesday 02 February 05 22:20 GMT (UK)
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I have the death certificate of Sarah Parkin who committed suicide on 2nd December 1882. There was an inquest on 5th Dec, presided over by Thomas Taylor. The verdict was "Unsound mind - drowned herself in Broomfield Mills, down in the water 1 hr." I would love to find any local newspaper account of this. Does anyone know where the newspaper archives from the time are kept?
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The local newspaper would have been the Spenborough Guardian but I don't know where the archives are held. However the paper is still going strong, the address is:
1, Market Street, Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire, BD 19 3RT.
so they may be able to help. Sorry I don't know their email address. Joan
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Many thanks, I'll contact them.
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Hi Suttontrust,
Interesting tale the archway to the Broomfield mills still stand today it's only down the road from me. Mills long gone as are many.
I could if you like on Monday if you can wait until then take a trip to the library which does have the Spen Guardian it wasn't called that then if I remember rightly.
But I am willing to print off anything that I find and either copy type when I get home for you or send by post to your home address?
The newspaper itself only keeps archives for about 5 years do you unlimited storage.
Let me know and then we can play the waiting game together.
Wendy
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That is an amazing offer, thank you very much. I've been in touch with the Wakefield Archives because I discovered that they have the notebooks of the coroner who did the inquest. For a fee they're going to send me a copy of the entry which they say is "relatively short", so it will be good to get anything the newspaper has. look forward to hearing from you.
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Just seen this posting - did you manage to find anything ?
I am planning on going to Morley library in the next few days and will have a look in the newspaper archives there if you like -
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Yes, thanks, got the newspaper cutting. Great information.
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Well come on then, put it on the page, we're all dying to know what it was all about
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Hi
Hope you don't mind Suttontrust but I still had this on my computer so I will post it.
Found it, as reported in the Cleckheaton Advertiser dated 8th December 1882.
Shocking suicide at MoorBottom
On Saturday morning last, a married woman named Sarah Parkin, aged 39 years wife of George Parkin, a grinder in the employ of Messers Thornton Bros, machine makers, Marsh, Cleckheaton and residing in School Street, Moorbottom, commited suicide by drowning in the Broomsfield Mill, Moorbottom. About seven o'clock in the morning she left the home. After that time she does not appear to have been seen alive. At a quarter past nine o'clock John Tidswell, engine tenter at Mr Wadsworth Mill had occasion to go to the dam, and on approaching observed a woman clothes floating in the water. On looking into the water, which was about 3 feet deep, he saw the deceased's body. He raised an alarm and the body was recovered but life was extinct. By direction of P.C Goforth the remains were removed to the husbands house. Deceased had been married 13 years, she had been in a disordered state of mind for two years. She leaves a family of six children.
Suttontrust has the inquest which was also in the paper but I posted that to her house address as it was too much to type it correctly.
Wendy
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That is so sad!!!!!!!!! Whatever state must she have been in poor soul? I don't think we understand how hard life was then. 2 of my famly died in the asylum one of alcoholism and the other after being in a deranged state of mind for several yeasr following the death of his wife and two of his children Looking at the background and where they lived and what happened in their lives neither of these 2 things surprises me.
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Thanks to Winston I got the newspaper account to supplement the coroner's notes. There was obviously a reporter sitting in the inquest because the newspaper account is much more detailed. It goes on to give the evidence of 3 witnesses - Sarah's husband, who didn't think she had anything troubling her, the man who found the body, and a neighbour who said in effect that she'd been mentally deranged for a while. One thing that strikes me is the effect it must have had on the children. A little girl of 5 was left looking after the baby. And the body was taken straight back to the family home, where the children would obviously have seen it. I can, however, report that George, Sarah's husband, remarried very quickly.
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I think he would have had to have done.
There were so many tragedies like this one, as somebody once said the Industrial Revolution was dearly bought.
PS
I just had an afterthought. The response of her husband sounds fairly typical then and now
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Yes, the report reall brings home the reality of life then. George going off to work at 5.30 every morning including Saturday. Sarah giving birth to 7 children in 12 years - her derangement was probably post natal depression. And so on.
There's one question that arises out of the report; a few days before her death Sarah had gone missing and come home at 1 am "the worse for drink", according to George, and with grazes on her face. She would only say that she had been "in the closes". Does anyone know what that means?
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Closes are 'fields' ......
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Thanks. That makes sense.
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The Yorkshire Post (address Wellington St., Leeds LS1, phone 01132432701) may also have carried a report of the inquest.
If you're really lucky, it will have been written by a different reporter, so you might get some different details.
Jon