Hello all,
I'm trying to track down some information on a road accident that took place over the weekend 8th-9th November 1947, in which a woman was killed and 11 others injured.
I have access to the newspaper archive through my Find My Past subscription, but countless searches have resulted in only one reference to the incident in the Aberdeen Press and Journal of 10th November 1947 (attached) which states that late on 9th November, detectives were still searching for the driver of the lorry that left a car park, lost control down a hill and crashed into a hotel.
The victim isn't named, but we know her to be 34 year old Catherine, known as Colebourn (recorded as Catherine C Coleburn and Catherine C Colbourne in the death register and Catherine Clare Colbourne and Colbowine on the burial register for 14th November at Ford Cemetery).
Catherine was the common-law wife of George Colebourn (we don't know of a marriage and there's no record found for one, despite the death & burial name). George had been torpedoed & killed at sea in WWII. Catherine had remained in George's household with his parents and siblings after his death (having been disowned by her family after she took up with George, who was black).
To celebrate her 11th birthday, my mother-in-law (George's youngest sister) had an arrangement to meet Catherine in Liverpool town centre. She got there to find the scene of the crash, but no sign of Catherine (who she assumed had let her down), so she returned home unaware that her aunt was at the centre of the crisis she'd witnessed. (Her account was that they were meeting at Lewis's, and that the lorry crashed into the front of the store, so there's a slight variance between this and the newspaper account)
The fact that there are no Liverpool publications in the archive managed by Find My Past for that period doesn't help (I have tried the National Newspaper Archive as well, but no sign).
This is a story we've known about for many years and I would really like to get to the bottom of the circumstances surrounding the accident and whether the driver was found (the lack of a marriage means I don't even have her maiden name). I assume there was an inquest and that this would likely have been reported in local papers.
Anyone got any creative ideas?