Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

I have a copy death certificate for my great great grandmother Maria Priest who died 9 September 1861 at 7 Fletcher Grove, Edge Lane. She was age 38 and the cause of death suggests a sudden and bloody death and there is a note that the death was 'not certified'. The death was witnessed by the occupant of that address, whose name means nothing to me. The last address I have for Maria Priest (April 1861 census) is in Sandown Lane, Wavertree. Maria was relatively well-to-do, the widow of an Insurance Company accountant who died of TB in London in 1859 (though the probate record describes him as being 'of Wavertree'). They had lived at quite a comfortable address in London and had 9 children, but her husbands work had taken him to Liverpool and most of the family appear to be in the Liverpool area in 1861. It seems likely that there would have been a post mortem/ inquest. I have not managed to find any newspaper report relating to this death or an inquest. Has anyone got any suggestions? I am in London but would come to Liverpool to browse records if there might be anything worth browsing.

Hi and welcome to the forum.

I don't believe there are any details of Inquests so early, from the catalogue Liverpool Coroners Inquests seem to go from 1898-1970.

From the address where the incident happened, it sounds like some kind of commercial premises, may we ask the name of the witness?

The witness is Catherine Bradshaw of 7 Fletcher Grove, Edge Lane, West Derby - Fletcher Grove no longer exists though it does appear on an old map I found online - just east of the old Edge Lane station in an area now surrounded by Edge Lane Binns Road and Rathbone Road - it looks now as if all of that area is rather 21st century retail! I did a 1861 census address search for Fletcher Grove and it's there and seems to contain a lot of people born outside the area, even outside this country, so it may have been a rather 'transitional' area of cheap lodgings etc. but obviously I don't know the area at all. I can probably do a bit more digging on that using census address searches up to 1911.

I have now realised that Catherine Bradshaw was a 'visitor' in the April 1861 census in Maria Priests's household in Sandown Lane, Wavertree so they clearly knew each other. She was born in 1839 in Overton Flintshire and is described in the 1861 census as a waitress.

I was originally thinking it was more like a commercial area since I'd seen an advertisement for No. 5 Fletcher Grove in the newspapers, however on taking a further look it appears to be for somebody teaching penmanship, I suspect this could just as easily be done from his lodgings.

You would be correct in thinking Sandown Lane would be an affluent area, even nowadays Sandown Park is a private estate.

Still looking.

This date would be covered by the Inquest Registers on Microfiche at Liverpool Record Office (temporarily in the museum). These records are not the full records of inquests but the basic details:-

http://www.forum.liverpool-genealogy.or ... 685#p91752

It's surprising there is no newspaper coverage if it was a violent death what is the wording on the death certificate concerning the cause of death?

Do you have her burial record? If not she was buried at St. Anne's, Stanley, West Derby on 14 September 1861. The abode at the time was given as West Derby. No information about how she died.


Blue

Thank you so much - that's really helpful. I guess I need to come to Liverpool to inspect the Inquest Registers.

The cause of death on the death certificate is 'Bursting of a Blood Vessel died in a few minutes after/ not Certified'. The informant is 'Catherine Bradshaw Present at the death' and then her 7 Fletcher Grove address. The death does therefore appear to be sudden, though not necessarily violent. It could presumably have been some kind of aneurism or stroke, but I'm not sure such a death would have occurred in a few minutes. I have tried websites of 19th century causes of death to try to find out what is meant by 'bursting of a blood vessel' and they haven't been a lot of help. I guess an arterial bleed could kill in minutes. Some other people suggested it might have been a back street abortion but such deaths would normally be from infection and would take hours or days. Or she might have had some heart defect. But she had reached the age of 38, given birth to nine children and survived her husband's death from TB in 1859.

Thank you very much for the burial information - that was just 7 days after her death.

If there had been an inquest there would have been a mention of the Coroner on the death certificate. The Coroner would have been the informant of the death and would have provided a certificate to the registrar who would then have used the information in the certificate to fill in the death certificate. I think in this case it was death by natural causes. I think it says uncertified because a doctor did not attend at the time of death.


Blue

Thank you very much for your help.

My husband's great-grandmother died suddenly when a varicose vein in her leg burst. There was an inquest, maybe because she was at her workplace at the time. Moya

Thanks for that. Interesting about the varicose vein. But it appears from what Blue said about the death certificate that there cannot have been an inquest in my great great grandmother's case. So I guess I'll never know what happened or what the relationship was between her and the woman whose house she was in.