wolverhampton coroner inquests?

[bradelkington]

Hi there i just recieved possibly the most bizzare death cert of my family so far today. My 4x great grandfather named samuel whittaker died 19 august 1861 in peel street wolverhampton aged 64 his cause of death was the deceased being a lunatic and distracted strangled himself with a curtain rope one end of which was tied around his neck and the other to a nail in his bedroom!
information was recieved from thos moss phillips coroner for staffordshire inquest held 21 august 1861, i was wondering if anyone had any idea if i can get a copy of the case notes of this? want to know abit more background story of what happened and perhaps why? many thanks in advanced.

[nanny jan]

Hi,

A word of warning;  survival of Inquest files is a very random situation.  Best place to try would be Staffordshire Archives, giving them name of deceased, date of Inquest and name of Coroner.  They should also be able to suggest which newspapers might have carried a report of the Inquest.

Good Luck!


Nanny Jan

[bradelkington]

Thankyou nanny Jan for your reply i shall write to them today hopefully i will get some info back just thought it was a very unusual way of suicide?

[nanny jan]

I guess when "the mind is disturbed" anything is possible.   



Nanny Jan

[weste]

I agree newspapers is your best option. William salt library is the place which holds the newspapers.  I know wolverhampton archives also holds old newspapers but i don't know how far back they go, probably not far enough.