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I think it’s rare to obtain inquest papers in the UK. I was very lucky to obtain the papers from Montreal and it was then I saw who the jurors were!!! Otherwise I wouldn’t have realised how ‘peculiar’ the case was! Do you have a hunch about this? Was she married?

Quote from: goldnutmeg on Sunday 09 June 19 21:58 BST (UK)

Funnily enough, I forgot to put in the newspaper also spelt my ggrandfather’s name wrong although it was still a plausible surname ... I know I was very lucky that the inquest papers are still in existence. Have you managed to find any other sources, Kevin?

I wrote for the inquest papers but nobody seems to have them. It was over a hundred years ago and the local authorities have changed hands many many times since then so I guess that is a dead -end (if you pardon the pun).

I may try again soon but as I am in the US and the death was in England it may take a while.

Kevin

Oh dear, I even had a newspaper reporter while reporting the inquest concur it was a ‘very peculiar death’.

The family mood - mood because details were scarce - my great grandfather was ‘done in’ financially by some ‘cousins’ and an iron foundry and he ran off to ‘North America’ where he died ignominiously.

My grandfather who was six at the time never spoke of him to us but his wife my Gran had gleaned some of the story. 

The details when I uncovered the paperwork may suggest the mood in the family could have been correct. I was lucky enough to get both newspaper reports and the full papers of a rather dubious inquest. Hence the reporter’s doubts but he obviously had to squash all those when the verdict came in as ‘suicide’.

My ggrandfather seems indeed to have invested in a business venture with cousins and sailed off to Canada where he went to the office of some cousins of cousins, who ran a scrap metal firm, in a supposedly hysterical state where for some reason he left his fob watch in their safe.

He then went back to his lodgings with a tailor and his family. They apparently left him alone for a few minutes and when they came back - he had slashed his throat and cut his wrists.

Oh, yes, and did I mention some of the cousins of cousins were on the inquest jury?

I did trace a descendant of the tailor who was intrigued and astonished - there is no evidence that the tailor and family did anything but give him lodgings and may have been willing to offer him a job so there was no discomfort there!

I showed some of the paperwork separately during social ‘dos’ to an academic historian specialising in emigration and then a professional genealogist. The academic furrowed his brow and said ‘Hmm, something’s not quite right about this ...’. The genealogist put it rather more succinctly, ‘It stinks!’ 1901 was a year of financial crashes but the clincher may have been the final sentence of the first newspaper report of the inquest before the verdict came in, ‘When the police found the body, it was still warm.’

Still, I know exactly where the slashes were on my ggrandfather’s body from the inquest pathology report, although we do feel we are entitled to wonder how he managed to slash his throat with a deep cut and then slash his wrists ...     

Not sure, but wasn`t Hannah Hauxwell connected to the Tallentires ?

I though this second epsiode covered a lot of stories including spititualism. I didn`t realise that there had been so much glassmaking in Newcastle.

I confess to not having heard of Hannah Hauxwell until now but looking up her obit https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/feb/01/hannah-hauxwell-obituary

You’re correct - her mother was Lydia Tallentire!

There appears to be two threads on this programme - it’s a shame they can’t be amalgamated?

Quote from: goldnutmeg on Thursday 18 April 19 13:47 BST (UK)

Did anybody catch the middle name or surname of the fine  upstanding pillar of the community solicitor who Freddy was convicted of stabbing? Something beginning with ‘T’? I got the Gilbert bit!

The solicitor's name was George Tallantyre Gibson.

Stan

Hey, thanks Stan!