cause of death

[boscoe]

Without the purchase of a death certificate, is it possible to find the cause of death? An ancestor died as an infant in Guildford. His father (Israel Eric) was forced by law in the 1911 Census to disclose it. That's how I found it out.  Alfred Frederick Wickens   
                                       b. Dec. 9, 1897
                                       d. Dec      1898

[CaroleW]

Simple answer is no - cause of death is not available online so you would have to buy the death cert.  PDF copies are £7

The 1911 census asks how many children were born alive during the marriage & how many  were still alive at the time of the census.  A bit dramatic to say his father was "forced by law to disclose it"

No checks were carried out to establish whether that info was correct and there was no requirement to name any of the deceased children

The 1911 entry for Rose Edith Wickens simply states 18yrs married during which time she had given birth to 11 children of which 9 were still living & 2 had died

[phenolphthalein]

A check of the quarters on the bdm index available for free may assist in estimating child's age at death. Remember events in December of one year may be registered in the first quarter of the following year.

Many children died at birth or shortly after, some died from contaminated ,mlk or diseases now rare due to vaccination such as measles or whooping cough, or diseases easily cured by antibiotics and other things we sww less of such as  as rhesus incompatibility.  This would not be something sinister just som,ething tragic.

I saw one family who losy 13 of 15 children oresumably due to rhesus factor incompatibility. Tragic

pH

[Claire64]

It's always worth checking the local newspaper; if the death was "noteworthy" (had a few of those - dosing an infant with "cordial" - containing opium; burning to death in front of the fire, drowning) it might make the papers.  Ancestry has some Coroner's Notebooks for the West Riding, but I don't know if they have others from elsewhere.  A pdf copy of a certificate will be cheaper than a certified copy.