death certificate mystery!!!

[jackski]

I have a death certificate of a family member which is puzzling me. The person in question was a 14 year old girl who died on 27/9/1942. The death was registered several weeks later on 13/11/1942.

The cause of death was given as:
Gastro enteritis certified by Will Bentley coroner for the West Riding of Yorkshire after post mortem without inquest.

I'm puzzled because
a) I thought that deaths had to be registered fairly quickly in order for the funeral to take place. Was this the case in 1942? If it was why was such a large gap allowed?
b) I was under the impression that if somebody dies whilst in the care of a doctor then he can sign the death certificate without a post mortem. If she was so ill surely she was being cared for by a professional? Her father was in paid employment so the family SHOULD have been able to afford a doctor.

I'm just not sure what is going on here at all. Any suggestions gratefully received.

Jacky

[groom]

Hi Jacky

Don't know the answer but could it be something to do with the fact that it was in the middle of the Second World War? I also know that a death certificate can't be issued until after a post mortem has taken place, so perhaps they had to wait for that.

Jan

[jackski]

No - there was no post mortem performed. It says so on the certificate.
Jacky

[carol8353]

What about an inquest then?

Maybe they had to wait for that to take place?

[Christine in Portugal]

I take the information on the death cert to mean there was a post mortem but no inquest.

"The cause of death was given as:
Gastro enteritis certified by Will Bentley coroner for the West Riding of Yorkshire after post mortem without inquest."

Christine

[carol8353]

No - there was no post mortem performed. It says so on the certificate.
Jacky

Thanks Christine- good job one of us is awake this morning !

I was taking more notice of Jacky's comment that there was NO post mortem

You are of course perfectly correct- there was NO inquest.

My dad died suddenly aged just 46 and hadn't seen the doctor for the preceding 14 days- they had to perform a post mortem to ensure there were no suspicious circumstances.He had a heart attack.

Carol

[jaywit]

If the death was certified by the Coroner then it must have been referred to him for some reason, in all probability because she hadn't been seen by a doctor before her death and maybe the thought that there was some problem involving public health with eg. food poisoning.
The fact that the death certificate wasn't issued till November doesn't necessarily mean she wasn't buried till November, the Coroner can issue a certificate to allow burial to take place.
This is why deaths did, and do not always take place in the month the certificate was issued.

[jackski]

Ooops!! Yes - let me clarify it! There WAS  a post mortem, but there WASN'T an inquest. Must have been half asleep when I answered that.
As far as I know, post mortems are performed fairly quickly after death. Inquests can take ages, but the fact that there WASN'T an inquest just makes me wonder why there was a gap of several weeks.
I've been in touch with my local register office today and they think that this length of time if highly unusual and so far haven't come up with an explanation. I've sent them a copy of the certificate so they can look into it a bit more.
Jacky

[carol8353]

Ooops!! Yes - let me clarify it! There WAS  a post mortem, but there WASN'T an inquest. Must have been half asleep when I answered that.

You and me too Jacky