Carole, I've just received a copy of Hannah's death certificate this morning, and very sadly the whispers in our family were true. The certificate says
Where and when died - Found dead, twenty-eighth November, 1911, Grand Surrey Canal, Deptford. Name and surname, Hannah Perl (and that's how they've spelt it) King, Female, wife of Charles King, Carman of 4 Gosterwood(?) Street, Deptford. Cause of death - Suffocation from drowning. Suicide during temporary insanity, p.m., Certificate received from H.R.Oswald, Coroner for London. Inquest held the 30th November 1911.
It's strange, but even though I'd heard the whispers when I was a little girl, to now see it in black and white like this... I never met my great grandmother but I feel so, so, sorry for her. To take her own life - she must have been so unhappy, so very desperate. And my grandfather, William King, would only have been ten years old. I remember an uncle telling my mother that he believed Charles married again after Hannah 'died', and that my grandfather hated this woman. My uncle said she doted on her own children, and used to smear egg round my grandfather's lips to make it look as though she had fed him, when she hadn't. He ran away - when I don't know but he was in the navy when he married my grandmother, at the age of 25, in 1926. Getting that marriage certificate has really put the cat among the pigeons because he is listed on it as divorced, and all of my great aunts must have known this, but not one of them said a word. As it says on the TV programme, 'Who Do you think you Are', be careful when you dig into the past because you might not always like what you discover
Margaret
