Strange causes of death

[lyn22]

I have a sad one my GGG Grandmother Mary died in 1856 when she was 36 years old. There was an inquest that was inconclusive it says she may have been raped. It says she died of the DTs I think she must have drank herself to death.

[ThrelfallYorky]

I recently felt really dim - in a parish register I thought I read someone had died"Of long tail" - I put a query on Rootschat after trying to find out what it might have been - and it turned out someone brighter read it to mean "Of long tail (a place nearby). Of course I felt very dim. But I did spend some time wondering in quite a creative way....

[Graham47]

The mind boggles! 

[Meezer]

Hubby has a relative who was a railway worker and who (illegally) hitched a ride back to the station holding onto a wagon but slipped and fell on jumping off and the wagon ran right over him. The inquest was reported in the paper and makes harrowing reading - typical graphic Victorian journalism in that he was basically sliced in half  All workers had to sign to say that they wouldn't do such things as hitching rides when they collected their weekly wages (could they all read?) so his wife received no pension for him 

[stanmapstone]

(could they all read?)

You don't give a date but illiteracy was not as widespread as is commonly thought. Thanks to the growth in freelance schooling, all privately financed, literacy levels had risen to about 92 per cent by 1870 and Forster's Education Act. In any case I would think the railway company would expect their employees to be able to read and write before they employed them, working for the railway was a very secure job so they could take their pick.

Stan

[iolaus]

I have one with just 'old age' written on it as cause of death - thought that was probably quite a nice way to go (he was 99)