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A Grim Almanac of Shropshire

The History Press

JANUARY

1 JANUARY 1939 In the past tuberculosis claimed a great number of lives and destroyed many households. The best chance for a complete recovery involved a stay in an isolation hospital, as general hospitals had a tendency to turn away patients with the notoriously contagious disease. In the early twentieth century the situation was dire in Shropshire, and pulmonary tuberculosis killed over 120 people per year. This meant that it took more lives than all other infectious diseases combined. By 1907 the only institution in Shropshire that would accept patients was the Shirlett Sanatorium, and by 1918 Shirlett was running at full capacity. Until 1931, Shropshire County Council was paying 83 per cent of each patient's maintenance costs. Unfortunately, however, even this proved insufficient, and the sanatorium ran up a huge debt. Shirlett was forced to ask the council to increase their contributions by a further 9 per cent. By 1938 the situation hadn't improved, and there were worries that patients would have to be sent away. Thankfully for the patients, however, from the 1 January 1939 the council agreed to pay the extra money, and the sanatorium was able to stay open.

2 JANUARY 1849 On this day, in Acton Burnell, PC John Micklewright came out the worse for the wear after a fight with local labourer Charles Colley. After a good few drinks in the Stags Head, an inebriated Colley was ready for combat. PC Micklewright was called to deal with this difficult customer. He escorted Colley from the pub and told him to go home. Colley flatly refused, and eventually grew so angry that he actually attacked Micklewright, beating him and breaking his leg. Micklewright was looked after by a local doctor, and was admitted to the Royal Salop Infirmary soon afterwards. Sadly, however, the injured policeman died of his wounds fifteen days later. During court proceedings Colley tried to prove that he did not intend to kill Micklewright, and that he had no idea the man was a policeman. He claimed that his actions were carried out in self defence, and that he therefore lacked the malicious intent necessary for a charge of murder. After only two minutes of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter. The judge believed that the jury had been extremely lenient but accordingly Colley was given ten years' transportation. To make matters worse, this assault occurred at a time before social security or pensions, and there was no one to provide Micklewright's grieving widow with financial support. She was forced into a workhouse, where she died soon after.

3 JANUARY 1810 On 2 January a fire was sparked in the Meadow Pit in Madeley. At the time the fire caught hold, thirteen men were working underground. Rather luckily, all the men working in the pit managed to escape to the surface, from a depth of 1,000ft, without a scratch. However, a tragedy occurred on this, the following day, when four men descended into the pit to determine the extent of the damage the fire had caused: all four were suffocated by the sulphur fumes.

4 JANUARY 1951 Frank Griffin was executed on this day for the murder of landlady Jane Edge. The crime took place on the 6 September 1950 at the Queen's Head Pub, Ketley, where Griffin, intent on robbery, beat Edge to death. He fled the scene with coins and notes crammed in his pockets. The last thing the victim said was that the money he stole 'would do him no good'. At his trial, Griffin insisted that he had not intended to kill Edge and was unaware that the damage he inflicted would end her life. He insisted that Edge would have survived his vicious assault had she not been 'over-nourished' with an 'enlarged heart'. Judge Cassels swiftly dismissed this excuse: when you commit a violent act, he informed the prisoner, you have to take your victims as you find them. As a capital sentence was handed down, Griffin could only have been thinking about the landlady's last words, and how right she had been.

5 JANUARY 1937 From The Times: 'On the arrival of a Belgian airliner here from Cologne this afternoon it was reported that one of the ten passengers, whose name is given as Mr Max Wenner of Bathcote Hall, Leebotwood, Shropshire, had fallen out of the machine during the flight at an altitude of about 3,000ft. The aeroplane [...] was passing through clouds at the time of the accident. Mr Wenner was in the lavatory of the aeroplane at the time. The pilot stated that he felt a slight shock. It is stated that the outside canvas of the aeroplane was found to be torn. The body of Mr Wenner was found, according to news received at Croydon, in the Meuse district of Belgium last night.'

6 JANUARY 1887 On this day the local newspapers reported on the events of the previous day's Shropshire Quarter Sessions. It came to light that Henry Clarence Williams, a physician and surgeon, along with his wife, Mary, had been charged with assaulting their daughter. The assault occurred on the 28 October 1886 when the girl, Gladys, was the subject of an unflattering report by her governess, who informed Henry and Mary that their daughter had not been paying attention. Her parents initially punished the child with a diet of dry bread, but soon decided that this was not enough of a penance. They took her to the nursery and shut the door to secure their privacy. In court, the servants said that they had heard the child scream for half an hour before Williams emerged, fetched a decanter of port, and returned to the room – where the screams began anew. One servant said that they saw the doctor standing near his child with a whip in his hand. The same servant, who was deeply distressed by the girl's treatment, actually passed out when she saw the extent of the bruises on the girl's lower body. The incident was reported to the police, and the local doctor testified that considerable violence had been inflicted with a riding whip. The defendants were ultimately found guilty of common assault and were forced to pay a fine and court costs.

7 JANUARY 1932 Due to a severe overflowing of the River Severn, two chimneys collapsed through the roof of the 'Poor Law Institution' at Bridgnorth. The chimneys fell straight through the sitting room and larder, causing a considerable amount of damage. The master of the house, along with the matron of the institution and a baby, were having dinner at the time that the debris fell, but thankfully no one was injured.

8 JANUARY 1924 On this day, the media reported on the death of a local celebrity, Mr William Shakespeare Childe-Pemberton (66), who died on the 5 January at Kinlet Hall after a short illness. He was a well-known writer of memoirs, as well as being extremely knowledgeable on art and history. Two notable works of Childe-Pemberton's are The Romance of Princess Amelia and Elizabeth Blount and Henry the Eighth, with Some Account of her Surroundings. The building of Kinlet Hall was accomplished by demolishing the surrounding villages, forcing the villagers to move. The space surrounding the building was then turned into parkland.

9 JANUARY 1839 At the Shropshire Quarter Sessions, Mr E. Edmonds, who was a coroner in Oswestry, was indicated for violating the Registration of Births and Deaths Act. It seems that during his time as coroner Edmonds failed to send to the district registrars the death certificates for his death inquests; when the certificates were demanded of him, he refused to hand them over. The jury returned a guilty verdict, and the honourable chairman summed up by reminding the court that Acts of Parliament must be obeyed, even if an individual disagreed with them, for the preservation of order.

10 JANUARY 1816 On this day Martha Riley, a single mother with a young child, was found guilty of stealing a few potatoes from a neighbouring garden. Riley, who was not married, had no other means of support. However, the owner of the potatoes had little sympathy and called for the constable. He soon took her to Shrewsbury for her trial, and she was sentenced to one year's hard labour. The child served the time with her in Shrewsbury Gaol.

11 JANUARY 1832 The local papers reported that three men – Isaac Skit (alias Isaac Powys), Emmanuel Shepherd and John Corfield, all of whom were colliers – had been indicted for 'riotously assembling' on 8 December 1831. After meeting, the small group then proceeded to Steeraway Lime Works, where they recruited further rioters. The jury, however, decided to dismiss the charges. When the chairman discharged the prisoners he said that he hoped they would go home 'feeling lucky', and would appreciate the 'forgiving nature' of the jury. He reminded them that the law was put in place to protect them, and he hoped that, as such, they would abide by it in the future.

12 JANUARY 1867 At this time there were extremely heavy floods in Shropshire. The Severn had recently iced over and subsequently thawed, causing the river to flood to an extent unseen since 1852. The fields surrounding the river were submerged for hundreds of acres, and at one point hedges disappeared completely under the water. In Smithfield Road, where a row of houses were enclosed by water, households were forced to live upstairs and to use boats in order to get around town.

13 JANUARY 1790 An inn in Ellesmere was the subject of an article in The Times on this day. The paper reported that the following poem had been scrawled on a window:

    Dust is lighter than a feather,
    The wind much lighter is than either;
    But, Alas! frail woman kind
    Is far much lighter than the wind.

    Beneath this, in different handwriting, was a riposte:

    Friend, you mistake the matter quite!
    How can you say that a woman's light?
    Poor Cornuo swears, throughout his life,
    His heaviest plague has been a wife!

14 JANUARY 1866 Before the birth of serology (the science of analysing blood), murder trials were often reliant on the informed opinions of doctors or police officers. These men would be asked to decide if blood found at a crime scene (or on a suspect) came from a human or from an animal. The case of Edward Edwards (18) was one of these cases. Edwards was murdered at Duddlewich Mill on this day. He left before breakfast to feed the pigs. Eventually, when he did not return, a search was instituted, and Edwards was found, bleeding, bruised and very near death, in a lower room in his uncle's mill. His skull was fractured, and several inches of bone were protruding into his brain. His hands were also cut – injuries sustained whilst defending himself against his attacker, it was presumed. When Edwards died, charges were brought against his uncle, John Meredith, on the basis that a pair of his (Meredith's) trousers had been discovered which were covered with blood. This item of clothing was sent to Professor Alfred Swaine Taylor at Guy's Hospital for examination. However, luckily for the uncle, Swaine Taylor explained at the inquest that it was not possible for him to distinguish whether it was animal blood and human. Meredith was therefore acquitted.

15 JANUARY 1785 On this day Robert Cole was found guilty of begging around Wellington Parish. His punishment was to be publically whipped all the way from Shrewsbury Market Hall to the gaol, where he served a six-month sentence – only to be publically whipped once again upon his release. Public displays of whipping officially came to an end in Shrewsbury in 1840.

16 JANUARY 1668 On this day Francis Talbot, the 11th Earl of Shrewsbury and 11th Earl of Waterford, duelled with George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, who was the lover of Talbot's wife, Lady Anna Maria Brudenell. Samuel Pepys wrote of:

the duell yesterday between the Duke of Buckingham ... and my Lord of Shrewsbury ... and all about my Lady Shrewsbury, who is a whore, and is at this time, and hath for a great while been, a whore to the Duke of Buckingham. And so her husband challenged him, and they met yesterday in a close near Barne-Elmes, and there fought: and my Lord Shrewsbury is run through the body, from the right breast through the shoulder: and Sir John Talbot all along up one of his armes ... This will make the world think that the king hath good councillors about him, when the Duke of Buckingham, the greatest man about him, is a fellow of no more sobriety than to fight about a whore ... I shall not be much sorry [if Buckingham should get into trouble for the fight] that we may have some sober man ... to assist in the Government.

These injuries ultimately resulted in Talbot's early death. His wife was rumoured to have dressed up as a page and held Villiers' horse in order to view the duel. She later moved into Buckingham's house, which was also home to his wife, causing an enormous scandal.

17 JANUARY 1887 When part of the roof of the Shrewsbury railway station collapsed under the weight of the snow piled on top of it, William Heath, a local town councillor and coal merchant, was killed on platform three. An inquest held on this day ruled the unfortunate event an accidental death. Sightings of his ghost have been reported on platform three since Heath's demise. Come nightfall, it is said, he can be seen waiting around on the platform for his train.

18 JANUARY 1911 An employee of the Ketley Grant Colliery by the name of Edward Morgan (24) was killed on this day, along with two other men. The three workers were 'holing' when a large 5-yard length of coal fell over and buried them alive. The sad incident may have been avoided had 'under-sprags' (a device, usually a post or bar, used to support mining roofs) been used.

19 JANUARY 1810 An inquest was held into the death of Elizabeth Williams (15), who had been a servant to Mrs Ridley of St Alkmund's Square. On the Monday prior to this inquest, Williams, feeling unwell, retired to bed. She ate only a little broth for the rest of the day, but her condition quickly deteriorated. By the evening she was dead. As she had been downstairs when she perished, her replacement was forced to carry her corpse upstairs. Elizabeth's body was placed on the bed, where she remained until the 18th. When she was asked to explain why she had left the body there, Mrs Ridley replied that she had wanted to leave the girl, just as she was when she died, until such a time as her father could see her. At the inquiry Mrs Ridley was also asked why she had not informed the girl's sister, who lived nearby, of her death. Mrs Ridley claimed that she had 'forgotten where she lived'. The sister rejected this story: she told the inquest that she had come to visit, but had been told that Elizabeth was 'not in' and further, that she was not allowed to wait at the house for her return. A neighbour attested that she had heard violent groans coming from the house for several hours on the evening the servant died. An acquaintance of the deceased also claimed that Williams had often complained of being deprived of food and mistreated by her employers. Despite all the above evidence, the jury at the inquest decided that there was not sufficient information to show that Elizabeth had been murdered, although they had reason to suspect the deceased had been improperly treated.

20 JANUARY 1900 When lighting a lamp on a ferry in Jackfield, near Ironbridge, John Harrison (72) fell backwards into the Severn and was swept away by the aggressive waters, as witnessed by fellow boatman Henry Wild and school teacher Jane Ellen Blocksidge. Forty-one days later he was found, dead and his body in the late stages of decomposition, on the shore of the River Severn at Bridgnorth.

21 JANUARY 1949 The Times today reported the death of local farmer James A. Davies of Lower Eyton Farm, Alberbury. He passed on at the Royal Salop Infirmary on the 19 January after a horrible accident: he was gored by a bull on his farm. The incident occurred when Davies was out on his farm feeding his calves: the bull, which had been tethered, managed to break its chain and instantly attacked Davies.

22 JANUARY 1816 On this date, local businessman and registrar-general of Shropshire Thomas Eyton died at his home in Wellington. It was widely believed that the death occurred following a short illness, but in fact it was later established that Eyton had committed suicide following the failure of his business, which had fallen into substantial tax arrears.

23 JANUARY 1936 Drusilla Pilliner (55) died in hospital after being involved in a road accident at Wrottesley. She was one of four people, including Jesse Broome, William Talbot Pilliner and Cecil Franklin, who were injured in the accident when their car collided with a coal lorry on the main road between Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury.

24 JANUARY 1928 At this time, the Ministry of Health issued a circular to the Boards of Guardians regarding outbreaks of smallpox around the country. In the twentieth century an estimated 300 million people died from the disease. However, the numbers had been even higher before Edward Jenner developed a vaccine in 1796, based on his observation that people who contracted cowpox did not go on to contract smallpox. In this year the Ministry of Health revealed that a case of smallpox had been discovered in Wollerton, a small village in North Shropshire. The World Health Organisation did not officially announce the eradication of the disease until 1979. Nonetheless, it remains one of only two infectious diseases which have officially been eradicated.

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Excerpted from A Grim Almanac of Shropshire by Samantha Lyon. Copyright © 2013 Samantha Lyon. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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