The Death of Richard Brown - Parkwood Springs Sheffield July 1879

The Todmorden and District News dated Saturday 4th July 1879 carried this report of a suicide that had taken place on the morning of Wednesday 2nd July 1879.   

What is apparent is that it must have been a macabre affair - the report states that the victim's legs were completely severed which infers that the body was removed to the Parkwood Hotel in pieces.

The Parkwood Hotel, Parkwood Springs Sheffield (courtesy of the Sheffield Closed Pubs Project)

 The Don Inn, Penistone Road, Sheffield 

The story then gets even stranger. The inquest was held the following day Thursday, 3rd July 1979 at the Don Inn, Penistone Road, Sheffield. This is quite a distance from the Parkwood Hotel and the scene of the accident - it would also have meant that the body pf Richard Brown was have had to be transferred from the Parkwood Hotel to the Don Inn in the preceding 24 hours. The report in the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent dated 4th July 1879 (see below) gives no indication of why his remains were moved but I suspect it was to facilitate the attendance at the inquest of the Coroner, his staff and the officials of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire railway company.

Sheffield and Rotherham Independent dated 4th July 1879

The verdict was a formality and the inquest finished. 

Richard was laid to rest in Sheffield's Wardsend cemetery on Monday 6th July 1979. The address given on the burial record still exists but the housing was demolished many years ago. Blueboy Street was just a street with back to back housing and courts - a classic Victorian slum that was situated in the Shalesmoor area of Sheffield

BROWN Richard buried 6 Jul 1879 Address Blueboy St Age 51 

Given the reduced circumstances of Richard at the time of his death he was have been buried in a public grave with no marker. 

The point of interest in this tragedy is that Richard Brown was the uncle of Joseph Laycock who was to murder his wife and four children in the White Croft area of Sheffield in July 1884,just five years after the suicide of his uncle

Sources

The Todmorden and District News dated Saturday 4th July 1879

Sheffield Closed Pubs Project)

Sheffield and Rotherham Independent dated 4th July 1879

Burial records - St Philips Church