Uncertified death

[mcmacey]

Can anyone help with a slightly mysterious death?

My great-great grandfather James Murphy's death was registered on 17 May 1875. The entry in the register says that he died aged 33 years on 15 May 1875 at 7.30am in Linthouse Shipbuilding yard Govan. The cause of death is given as "Unknown" (in quotes). It also notes that he died suddenly and then where it would normally say 'as certified by', it says 'Not Certified'.

Has anyone seen anything similar? Does it mean there might have been an industrial accident or could it have been natural causes? Shouldn't there have been an inquiry?

Any thoughts welcome!

Betty

[eilthireach]

No, not uncommon. It just means that a doctor has not been involved and the cause of death was therefore just what the informant told the registrar.

[GR2]

Often in such cases you will find a reference at the left side of the certificate to an entry in the Register of Corrected entries. If that is the case there is a link to the page in the RCE on the page you found the death certificate on ScotlandsPeople.

You should also check the newspapers in case there is a report of an accident.

[mcmacey]

Thanks. There is no reference to RCE. I have checked online newspapers. I don’t know whether the Mitchell has any records of local newspapers but I can’t get there as I live in Essex now.

[GR2]

The Paisley Herald and Renfrewshire Advertiser of 22nd May 1875 reported his death.

Unfortunately I don't currently have a subscription to see the complete entry, but what is visible reads:

On Saturday morning a man named James Murphy, while engaged in employment as a hammerman in Messrs Alex. Stephen & Sons' shipyard, Linthouse, suddenly fell to the ground ....

[RJ_Paton]

It was not compulsory to have a medical attendant at a death until much later and at that time period even if requested a doctor was not compelled to attend.

[whiteout7]

If you cut and paste this

hammerman in Messrs Alex. Stephen

into Britishnewspaper archives the death notice comes up

https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/search/results?basicsearch=killed%20linthouse&retrievecountrycounts=false

If you register, you get three free pages, so you can read this without a subscription and save the other two pages for something else

[Forfarian]

Has anyone seen anything similar?

Yes, often

Does it mean there might have been an industrial accident or could it have been natural causes? Shouldn't there have been an inquiry?

It usually means that the cause of death was natural and so obvious that it wasn't even necessary to get a doctor to certify the cause of death.

[mcmacey]

Thank you all so much. The poor man apparently just keeled over and died. His infant daughter had died two months earlier of bronchitis/tuberculosis so possibly he’d been living with something similar trying to keep a roof over  the family’s head. But it does leave me with another puzzle to solve - the article says he left his wife and four children -so far I only know of three of them, not counting the child who pre-deceased him. Fascinating.

Thank you again!