Curious death certificate

[dillybert]

Hi all,

I'm hoping some kind soul may have some experience of this kind of thing...

I have a death cert where the informant is the Surrey Coroner and the date registered for the death is much later than the date of death. Any idea why this might have happened?

The cause of death box says (I think) - Natural death. Internal Rupture of the Stomach by distention

Then it appears to say underneath: "Inquest 20 minutes" though it's v hard to read. I will try to obtain and add a piccie of it. Does anyone know what the "20 minutes" might be about - I've never seen that before on a death certificate.

Death occured 25th January 1851 and death was registered 31 May 1851. Informant was William Carter, Coroner for Surrey, Kingston. The death occured at 22 Felix Street, Westminster Road, Lambeth.

I was expecting the wife to be the informant. And I thought that you had to register the death to be able to bury someone, so does this mean he lay unregistered or even undiscovered for ages? If so, how is the date of death so exact?

BTW, his wife was actually pregnant at this point, and by the time of the census in March, she has a 8 day old baby. But I know very little about John Meller as he dies just before the 1851 census.

Is this a clue to a weird juicy story, in which I should maybe chase inquest reports in the newspapers, or is my overactive imagination getting the better of me and this is just a common or garden death registration with odd paperwork...?

Any thoughts welcome.

dilly

[Fisherman]

If it was at first thought that the death was suspicious a death certificate could not be issued until after the inquest which usually takes place months later In the meantime the coroner usually releases the body for burial after examination. 
Nowadays the coroner will issue an 'interim  certificate of fact of death' to allow a persons estate to be settled

Fisherman

[SandraC]

Hi Dilly

Welcome to Rootschat!

Nice juicy certificate to start with 

I think the 20 minutes refers to the distension of his stomach or the rupturing rather than the length of the Inquest.  Often on death certificates you get some time interval, usually more mundane than this - like pneumonia 14 days or brain effusions 3 days etc, so this looks like something similar.

Why it took so long for the inquest I don't know.  Most of the Coroner's reported deaths I have seemed to take place very quickly - within 1-3 days of the date of the death itself.

They can take much longer nowadays - perhaps there was no Coroner for Surrey in post at the time?  I can't believe they would have left him unburied for that period though - unChristian for a starter & not good from the Public Health angle either.

P'raps there are official records somewhere of whether there was a Coroner in post?

Regards
SandraC

[dillybert]

Many thanks - that all sounds reasonable.

Sorry it's taken me ages and ages to thank you - took some time out from family history while my little one was born (now that's an excuse you can't use every day), and am now catching up... One day will get around to checking local papers on this - he's frustrating as he died months before the 1851 census so only have a father's name from the marriage cert but have no idea where he might have been born.

I just found that the British Library digitization pilot project on line has 1851 so I got quite excited there, but I couldn't find anything so it wasn't juicy enough to make the news of the world!

dilly

[Sylviaann]

Congratulations on the baby.  It's a VERY good excuse.  You will be busy.

You can ask on here for an 1841 lookup which should at least tell you if he was born in county.  Try a seperate request on the lookups section and post as much detail as possible.

Sylviaann

[loo]

I agree, the 20 minutes is likely the duration of the illness before death.

Perhaps the coroner was rather behind in his paper work, and/or had a messy desk!  Or maybe he was in poor health, or a drunkard.  These things happen.

Worth checking records though.