HELP- 1943 Inquest

[Alexpk]

Hello friendly roots chatters ,
                                              I am after some advice... I recently discovered that one of my ancestors  (Cornelius Maskall age 30) was killed on the railway sidings LMS, Brent Empty Wagon siding of Edgware Road, Hendon UD, he was run over by a railway wagon whilst Shunting on the 1st jan 1943,  the death certifiate says ...

Coroner for east middlesex Inquest held 5th January 1943

It may sound a bit morbid but I would like to know the outcome of the inquest ...  Can inquest information even be viewed? and if so where where would i find it?

Any help is greatly apprciated
Thanks in advance Alexpk

[stanmapstone]

Under the Home Office Circular 250/1967, a schedule of destruction of coroners records is laid down.Once 15 years old the records can be weeded,' that is destroyed or sampled by the individual coroner concerned. There are exceptions to the 15 year destruction, and apparently it is not compulsory so some coroners choose not to destroy them. Therefore individual Coroners decide what happens to the papers, but very many of them were destroyed by the coroner anyway, hence there are regional variations in survival.
See http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/research/coroners/records.html about coroner's records A newspaper report is the best bet, but it an easy matter to contact the  relevant  Record Office to see what they have.

Stan

[Alexpk]

Thank you for your help , I will start there. 

[Plummiegirl]

You best bet will be the local press.

At this time most coroners inquests would still be 'headline' news and as such will often be covered by the local reporters.

By law coroners are only required to keep their records for a certain amount of years and then they are a liberty to detroy (throw them out) them.  Some if very unusual may have been kept.

I know from experience that a coroner in the Bristol area in the 1940's decided his office need more space and threw everything away, he was not doing anything wrong, how was he to know that years down the line we family history researchers would love to see these records.

Check the papers for the week following 5th January 1943.  I would suggest that an article would appear in either that evenings paper or that of the next day or issue.  Contact the local archives and they will let you know if they have copies of the local papers and whether or not they charge for their services.

[Alexpk]

Hi Plummiegirl,
                       Thank you for your response, I have emailed Hendon library archives as you suggested. If they hold the relevent papers I will plan a visit there. Thank you for taking the time to respond, your suggestions are greatly appreciated, most of my reasearch has been conducted at home online and I have only ever visted one (very friendly very helpful) Record office so the whole archive thing is new and a bit sacry to me.. but im very excited about it.

Thanks again, Kind regards Alexpk

[Jebber]

You could try the National Archives to see if there is a Board of Trade report, I found one for a similar incident. If there is one it will come under rail.

Jebber

[Alexpk]

Hi Thanks for that, ive had a quick look and can see many fatal accidents are recorded there.. nothing has come up under a quick search but i need to have a better look when I have more time (got to get to work... better shut down now beacuse this is addictive!) 

Thanks for your suggestion Jebber.
Kind regards
Alexpk

[dawnsh]

Hi

The London Metropolitan Archives has a detailed leaflet about the survival and 'why they don't' of London records

http://217.154.230.218/NR/rdonlyres/B4AD8012-54EA-4A38-BD3D-273ABB331498/0/41CORONERSRECORDSFORLONDONANDMIDDLESEX.pdf

Dawn

[Alexpk]

Thank you Dawn