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Thank you everyone for your replies and the links.

I’ve spoken to my mother and she knows no family history related to what hospital she was in. We know how she died though - she fractured her leg falling on the stairs. No one realised it was broken she carried on walking on it and it the bone became inflamed and infected. It was chronic not acute, family visited her in hospital. They were the poorest of the poor I don’t see choice coming into it?

I have though found out there was a full inquest into her death which my mother also didn’t know (verdict -accidental) so the coroner’s report might have a more complete story

Thanks again for your replies

Back to typhoid - I’ve fine some digging as it was a legally notifiable disease and found some detailed online records regarding her home parish of Limehouse.
It lists numbers of people from the parish (specifically including those from who belonged to the parish but died elsewhere) who died of communicable disease and when.
Although 21 died of typhoid in 1899 no case was recorded as being contracted in the parish in April or May and she died 12th May. So it at least answers my question for whatever reason she wasn’t living at home when she died

I have a number of questions relating to my Great Grandmother Mary Ann Palmer. She’s been the toughest brick wall for various members of my family researching over many years. I feel like she destined to only ever create more questions than answers.

I finally found her death certificate and she died of typhoid in a fever hospital in London in 1899. However there’s some unanswered questions still:

1. She was in the wrong part of London - there was a fever hospital in her doorstep in the East End yet she died in South London. Is there any reason a typhoid patient would be moved across the city or does it suggest she must have been in South London when she got infected?

2. Related to this no one else in her family got it - she had 5 young children at home and none were infected? Is that plausible? Does this also suggest she wasn’t at home when infected? My understanding is it was highly contagious

3. Her infant son (18m) died of chronic malnutrition 2 weeks after her death in a general infirmary in the East End near the family home, yet the family were not so impoverished that the children should have starved. Again does this suggest she wasn’t around to care for him?

You can probably see where I’m going with this. There’s no underlying health conditions recorded on her death certificate.

Does it seem logical to anyone else that she had left the family home? Can anyone come up with another explanation?

Any input gratefully received

Oh dear,not a great deal to go on really with the details you have

Tell me about it!

To add in more confusion she’s recorded on the marriage certificate and 1891 census as Mary Ann, family history said no one called her Mary or Ann but something else, later records including her death certificate show Elizabeth Mary or Mary Elizabeth and the Ann disappears completely 

At least in finding her death (certificate with husband name/occupation/address that proves it was her) we know she actually died roughly when she was supposed to, when until recently because of the name & age change - and it turns out wrong area of London as well - we didn’t even know that for sure. It’s been a long old road

Hello everyone

Please feel free to move if this is the wrong place to post

I have a number of questions relating to my Great Grandmother Mary Ann Palmer. She’s been the toughest brick wall for various members of my family researching over many years. I feel like she destined to only ever create more questions than answers.

I finally found her death certificate and she died of typhoid in a fever hospital in London in 1899. However there’s some unanswered questions still:

1. She was in the wrong part of London - there was a fever hospital in her doorstep in the East End yet she died in South London. Is there any reason a typhoid patient would be moved across the city or does it suggest she must have been in South London when she got infected?

2. Related to this no one else in her family got it - she had 5 young children at home and none were infected? Is that plausible? Does this also suggest she wasn’t at home when infected? My understanding is it was highly contagious

3. Her infant son (18m) died of chronic malnutrition 2 weeks after her death in a general infirmary in the East End near the family home, yet the family were not so impoverished that the children should have starved. Again does this suggest she wasn’t around to care for him?

You can probably see where I’m going with this. There’s no underlying health conditions recorded on her death certificate.

Does it seem logical to anyone else that she had left the family home? Can anyone come up with another explanation?

A final point we still aren’t certain who she was. Every official record suggests a different age (birth 1860-1872). How common was it for age to be recorded so incorrectly at this time?

Any input gratefully received

Marasmus - severe malnutrition.

Thank you

That’s quite brutal I can only think he must have had some underlying condition that interfered with his ability to eat or digest his food. He was 18months old 1890s but although they were fairly poor they weren’t in abject poverty and he had 4 healthy siblings alive at this time who weren’t starved as kids or have to spend time in the workhouse like quite a few of my ancestors did. Poor mite