Wenlock & Ludlow Express
EXTRACTS FROM THE WENLOCK & LUDLOW EXPRESS
Vol I Number 1
Wenlock & Ludlow Express Saturday 7 February 1880
Madeley Accident: On Wednesday morning a boy named Thomas Guy was injured by a fall of stone from the “face” at Messrs Shepherd & Guy’s Pits at Madeley Court.
Dramatis Personae
THOMAS GUY: The following year Thomas, 16, is living in Princes Street, Madeley, with his parents and 9 siblings. Father Joseph, 42, and brother Richard, 20, are also Iron Stone Miners. Source: 1881 CEBs RG11/2638 f. 113.
Wenlock & Ludlow Express Saturday 14 February 1880
Ironbridge borough police court Charge of drunkenness against a clergyman: The Rev Samuel Overton, M.A., who some time since regularly assisted at the services at Ironbridge Parish Church, was charged with being drunk on licensed premises with a man named Cornelius Taylor, moulder at Ironbridge, on the 30th of last month. PC Smith stated that. . . at about 7.30pm he visited the Oak Public House in the company of PC Gadd. In the kitchen he saw the two defendants drunk. Taylor had hold of Overton’s beard and was using bad language. Witness asked Taylor what he was doing, and he said “The b—— has just had me by the throat, and I am as good a man as him.” Overton used bad language, and said he did not think he was. Witness called the landlady’s attention to them and she ordered them out. Taylor’s wife was in the kitchen and was asking him to go home. Taylor and his wife went out and she took him staggering up the road. About two minutes after Overton came staggering out into the middle of the road, and exposed his person in the street, staggering backward and forward all the time. Three young females passed down the road at the time. Defendant afterwards went staggering up the road towards the top of the Church Hill. His conduct had been very bad in Ironbridge for the past three months . . . Taylor would be fined 5s. and 10s. costs or 7 days. We understand that PC Smith has since served the summons on Mr Overton at Bridgnorth where he has been traced.
Dramatis Personae
SAMUEL OVERTON: No trace (yet) of the errant clergyman in the following year’s Census.
CORNELIUS TAYLOR: “Conenils” in the CEBs, age 38 in 1881, living with wife Emily, 32, on Hodge Bower. The couple have four children aged 10 to a mere 6 days. Source: 1881 CEBs RG11/2637 f. 114
ROYAL OAK PUBLIC HOUSE, CHURCH HILL: Edwin Ketley is listed as Innkeeper in 1881 – his wife Ann, 57, may not be the landlady in the report. Source: 1881 CEBs RG11/2637 f. 123
PC SMITH: There are two Constable Smiths enumerated in 1881. Edwin, 34, is living closer to the above night’s action – in Church Street, Wellington. Source: 1881 CEBs RG11/2678 f. 99. (PC John Smith, 27, is residing at Bennetts End, Cainham.)
PC GADD: John Gadd, 22, a “Police Officer”, is living in King Street, Dawley in 1881 with wife Amelia. Her age is given as 32, so PC Gadd may be older than stated. Source: 1881 CEBs RG11/2635 f. 64
Wenlock & Ludlow Express Saturday 7 February 1880
Coalbrookdale Ice Accident: On Saturday last two youths named George Speake and Thomas Downing had a narrow escape from drowning on the pool opposite the Institution. They were amusing themselves on the ice, which was very rotten from the thaw and the water from above having been let in, and both fell in out of their depth. Prompt measures were at once taken by those who saw the incident, and by means of a ladder and ropes the lads were eventually rescued in a very exhausted state.
Dramatis Personae
GEORGE SPEAKE: 17 year old Iron Moulder George Speak is living in Upper Forge 15 months or so after the accident. The head of the household is Mary Aston, age 63. Though enumerated as Mary’s “son” George is more likely the eldest of the three children born to Elizabeth Speak, a widow age 36. There are no Parish Register entries for George or his mother. Grandma Mary died in 1885. Sources: 1881 CEBs RG11/2637 f. 66; Cbd Burial Reg No.1037
THOMAS DOWNING: A year older than George and living at the “Boaring Mill” in 1881 with parents Thomas and Sarah, four brothers and a sister, Elizabeth. Young Thomas is a Striker in the Iron Works, his father a blacksmith. There is a baptism record for our young iceman but no marriage information in Coalbrookdale and Ironbridge. Sources: 1881 CEBs RG11/2637 f. 67; Cbd Baptism Reg No.280
Wenlock & Ludlow Express Saturday 14 February 1880
Shocking death on the railway at Coalport: Yesterday (Friday) morning, as the 6.40 train from Shrewsbury to Worcester was passing between Ironbridge and Coalport Stations near Messrs Maws new siding, the driver observed a man lying with his head on the metals. The driver did his utmost to attract the man’s attention and to pull up his train, but without avail, the man’s head being severed from his body. The matter was reported at Coalport Station and on a search being made, the body was found to be that of John Bathos, over 60 years of age, who has for very many years worked as a rope spinner for Mr Councillor Burroughs, Ladywood. There would appear little doubt that the act was a deliberate one, although, as far as we can learn, there appears to be no cause of any depression on the part of the deceased.
Dramatis Personae
JOHN BATHOS: A subsequent report on the Inquest into this man’s death gives his name as “Batho”. This is a North Shropshire name, though there are a few born in Broseley to be found in the IGca databases. It is initially curious that the Inquest Report makes no mention of the suicide’s family because there is a Rope Maker called John Baths listed in the 1861 Census, living in Salthouse with a wife, Sarah. This couple may have had at least three children, George, Rebecca and Stephen, enumerated under name variations “Baths” and “Bather” but none can be found in the 1881 Census in Shropshire. John Baths, according to the 1861 Census, was born in 1812 in Tilstock – Batho heartland – and so fits the first report’s “over 60 years of age” description.
WILLIAM BURROUGHS: The son of the Rope Manufacturer stated at the Inquest that John Batho had worked for his father for 48 years. The Jury returned a verdict “that the deceased committed suicide while in a state of temporary insanity”. He was 68 years old, perhaps ill, and maybe had no family left to care for him. Sources: 1861 Census (no refs); Gorge People (no refs).