Sir William Richard Cosway, Kt, aged 50, of Bridge House Place, Newington, was buried in the parish of St Martin in the Fields on 14 June 1834.
Newspaper reports of the inquest show that on 7 June 1834 he was a passenger on the Criterion stagecoach travelling from London to Brighton. Sir William had boarded it at the Half Moon in Gracechurch Street. At about 4pm, on the southern end of London Bridge, the stagecoach came into contact with a dray, causing a blow to one of its wheels. A little way further on*, the coachman had to pull the horses up suddenly in order to prevent a collision with either another horse on the road which had shied, or its rider who had been unseated. This broke the pole on the stagecoach, the broken parts of which swung against the horses' hind legs and sent them out of control towards Elephant & Castle at high speed.
Eventually, after desperate but futile attempts by the coachman and onlookers to calm the horses, the stagecoach overturned near the Artichoke Inn, Borough, and Sir William (a "very fine, stout, portly man"), who was trying to climb from the box to the roof of the stagecoach at the time, was propelled head-first onto the street, sustaining gruesome head injuries. He was carried to the house of Mr Lever, a surgeon, in Bridge House Place, Newington, but died of his injuries shortly afterwards (reports vary from 15 minutes to an hour and a half after the accident).
Sir William was the only fatality, though other passengers were injured. The Coroner's jury attributed no blame to the coachman for the accident.
Sir William's friends wanted a likeness cast from his corpse before burial, but once the inquest was completed the body was too decomposed for this to take place, and his coffin was soldered with lead for burial in the family vault.
*As to the precise location of the stagecoach at this time, - one witness puts it at the junction of Lant Street (which still exists) and Blackman St (now Borough High St). Another describes it as "nearly opposite St George's Church" which would be about the junction of Mint St (now Marshalsea Rd) and Blackman St/Borough High St.
