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Scotland (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Scotland => West Lothian (Linlithgowshire) => Topic started by: moo on Friday 07 October 16 14:48 BST (UK)
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Good Afternoon
I am hoping someone can read how Elizabeth Wright died in 1856, it looks like Electric something.
Regards
Moo
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Fluid?
Death instantaneous
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Yes I agree with that too.
Carol
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That is how I read it Amelia and Carol, but I am at a total loss as to what it means, and i cant think of anything that is similar. :-\
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Mention of a house being damaged after being hit by " electric fluid " in a newspaper report of 1856.
Cathy
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My first thought was Pneumonia..as fluid builds up in the lungs....or drowning.
Carol
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Looking at lots of mentions of electric fluid and looking at the context , I would say Lightening is a probability.
eg "The electric fluid came through the roof of the house" "inadvisable to stand under trees when there is electric fluid around"
Poor lady.
Cathy
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I googled and came across a description of what would be a bolt of lightening.
Regards
Moo
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Strange isn't it. What did 'electric' mean in the 1850s though? I wondered about lightening and a flood but that seems so obscure. Battery acid was another thought but my science certainly the history of it isn't good!
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They did used to refer to electricity and lightning as electrical fluid.
One instance might be where somebody touched an exposed wire and was killed by electrocution. Any form of electrocution they saw as a fluid.
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I wonder if there is any newspaper article for her death, wouldn't have thought it would have been an everyday occurrence.
The death is given as Faulhouse , Whitburn. Elizabeth's youngest child would have been 4 years old, the youngest of six.
How strange to think of electricity and lightening as a fluid, I have never really thought about it.
Regards
Moo
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Hi Moo
This death would very likely been investigated by the Procurator Fiscal and his office. There would normally be an entry for it in the Register of Corrected Entries (RCEs) which would potentially give you a little more detail than what shows on her death reg. Is there anything written on Elizabeth's death registration on the l/h side of the margin?
Monica
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Perhaps now we tend to think of the word 'fluid' in a more narrow sense than we used to, as referring only to liquids, when it once had a more general meaning of 'something which flows' - which of course electricity does.
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Sadly Monica,
I have checked the death entry and there is nothing beside her name. The death was notified by her brother William Campbell, which has made me think where was hubby - William Wright ?.
Regards
Moo
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;D
I did find a newspaper report for the death, it states
At Whitburn, the wife of of a working man was killed while in her own house. She was sitting at the fireside with her husband, who had a child on his knee, when a flash of lightening descended the chimney, struck her dead almost instantaneously, deprived her husband of the use of one of his side and threw the child from his arms to the floor with considerable violence. Strange to say, the child escaped uninjured.
That also explains why her brother registered the death, if the husband was also injured.
Regards
Moo