Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

Hello, I have an interesting and rather tragic character in my family tree. Oscar Wylde was a police inspector in Singapore, where he married and later had a family. To cut a long story short he sailed with the family back to Singapore in April 1931 but returned suddenly to Bootle where in June that year he committed suicide by putting his head in the gas oven. From the probate records his address was in Essex at the time but the house where he died belonged to his sister and her family. His family appear not to have returned to England with him.
His great nephew and I are trying to piece together his life and would like to find a report of the coroner's inquest - we assume there must have been one. A search kindly conducted for us of the Bootle Times revealed nothing.
Can anyone help, please?

Hello Deborah,
What a sad tale! I assume this is his death?
Deaths Jun 1931: Wylde, Oscar A J - 46 - W.Derby - 8b - 465.

If the death was due to unnatural causes there would have been an inquest.
It is possible the Liverpool Coroner's Office still has a record. There's info here http://www.liverpool.gov.uk/Images/tcm21-82111.pdf that indicates records are archived at the Liverpool Record Office. Access at present could be very limited as the LRO itself is closed. Details of the closure and records access are available elsewhere on this site.

As you have the date of death a search of the Liverpool Echo archives might be useful.

Brian

Hi and welcome to the forum. I can add little to Dickiesam's reply except to suggest that you keep an eye on this post to see when archives are available for research.
http://liverpool-genealogy.org.uk/phpBB ... php?t=9679

Many thanks for your help. It looks like we may be unlucky as, so far as I can see, the Coroner's Inquest records only go back to 1937. His will wasn't actually proved until 1935, four years after his death, but still too early. So my only hope is the newspaper archives, which I see are available but only on microfiche. One of us will have to schedule a visit at some point.