Sarah
Hawkins Genealogy Site
Newspaper
Articles
The Western Gazette, Saturday 29 Oct 1864
Page 2 Column 3
STOKE-UNDER-HAM.
INQUEST. - On Saturday last an inquest was held at the Fleur de Lis Inn, before S. CRADDOCK, Esq., deputy coroner, and a respectable jury, touching the death of William MURLEY, stone mason, aged 63 years, whose suicide we briefly described last week. From the evidence it appeared that on Tuesday afternoon deceased, who had for some time been ailing and in a desponding state, during the temporary absence of his wife, proceded to the garden at the back of his house and deliberately leaped into the well. A neighbour named Ann MALE, hearing a splash gave an alarm, and several persons were soon on the spot. The deceased was seen to rise above the surface, but sometime elapsed before any one would venture down the well, which was a very deep one and very difficult to descend. At last a young man named Benjamin GAYLARD descended by means of a rope, and soon succeeded in bringing deceased up, but not before life was extinct. All means to restore him were ineffecutal. <sic> The deceased, in addition to a long family by a former wife, has left a widow and young family by a second marriage. The jury returned a verdict that the deceased destroyed himself by drowning whilst in a state of temporary insanity.