A short one today…
This week, I’ve been working through my whole dataset. Over a thousand Peterborough inquests to clean and sort and categorise. But these inquests account for only part of Peterborough’s mortality.
There were two coroners in the CITY of Peterborough. One dealt with the Liberty of Peterborough, a vast area stretching from the north bank of the Nene in town as far as Stamford and Wittering. This guy is MY coroner. The other dealt with deaths on the OTHER side of the river, in a much smaller area known as Norman Cross. After 1874, the lines shifted a bit, and Fletton and Woodston deaths were absorbed into the jurisdiction of the Liberty. But this death is from 1864, when the lines were solidly drawn.
This death occurred during fair week. The fairs were held on the fairground, on London Road around the viaducts…and they still are. And as you can see, these fairs were not in the Liberty of Peterborough, so if people died there, their deaths were investigated by the other guy. In 1864, the other guy was William Hopkinson, a coroner who lived in the city and did dozens of inquests for the Liberty as well as his named jurisdiction.
The fair was held as usual in October 1864, pulling crowds into the city along Oundle Road. One man who attended was Henry Barratt, a wheelwright from Glapthorn, with a load of wood to sell. He arrived at the Cherry Tree pub on Monday 3rd October, a place he always stayed at when visiting Peterborough. He sold plenty of wood on the Monday and Tuesday, and spoke about his good takings - he had at least £16 on him by Tuesday night. On Tuesday evening, he returned to the pub for dinner, and then went out to visit the fair around 7pm.
He was never seen alive again.
Around noon on 6th October, a body was found in the river after a boat collided with it. It was between the viaducts and the railway bridge that took trains through to Peterborough Eastern station: this part of the river is a very short walk from the fairground. Henry’s body was fished out using chains. He showed signs of dying as soon as he hit the water: his arms were extended, there was no froth around his lips. There were no other marks of violence, so he had either fallen in…or been pushed.
The inquest was held in three stages, on 7th, 12th and 28th October, at the Crown Hotel in Peterborough, the massive railway hotel that served the East station, on the corner of London Road and East Station Road.
The first inquest established that Henry was Henry, that nobody would admit to seeing him since he left the Cherry Tree on Tuesday night, and that his pockets were empty of cash. The inquest also established that Henry’s pocketbook had been found in a nearby garden, along with a straw hat that did not belong to him.
The plot thickened before the second inquest. A man, similar in appearance and shape to Henry, told the landlord of the Black Swan on Wednesday that he’d been robbed at the fair on Tuesday night. A woman also claimed to have seen Henry in a pub called the Bull Tap, on Wednesday, early in the morning. The inquest was adjourned again. Had Henry actually died on Wednesday? Had he died when drunk, after doing an all-night pub crawl?
By the third inquest, the robbed man in the Black Swan had been traced, and very reluctantly admitted that it was him, not Henry, in the pub on the 5th - perhaps he had not wanted it known that he was in Peterborough that week. Additionally, the young woman from another pub said she’d muddled her days. She had seen Henry on the TUESDAY morning.
Henry drowned on the Tuesday night, that much was now clear. But how did he end up in the water?
Undoubtedly, Henry had been robbed. He was probably robbed on the riverbank, and his unwanted belongings thrown over a hedge into a garden, where they were found. He ended up in the water, perhaps by slipping, perhaps by being pushed. He did not struggle, perhaps because of the shock of the cold, and sank before he was spotted.
It is not far from the fair to the riverside to the Cherry Tree, but there is no need to walk by the river to get back to the Cherry Tree from the fair. A more sensible approach would be along Oundle Road, under the viaducts. The viaducts today see a constant stream of trains, and this traffic would have been far greated in the nineteenth century, with a whole extra line and station in the mix. The trains were noisy, constant, exuding steam. It was not a peaceful, quiet spot for a walk. What reason could a man have to be lurking under the arches of a viaduct, unnoticed, at night?
Henry was widowed in 1859, after his wife died in childbirth. He had a large family, and never remarried. However, Peterborough Fair was full of young women hoping to make a bit of money - the same women would go to all the fairs and village feasts to ply their trade, and had quite the circuit going on. His state of dress is not mentioned in the newspaper, although he certainly had some clothing on. The viaduct arches are a perfect place for a quickie (as generations of Peterborough’s youths can attest), and usefully close to the fairground.
A common, nasty, trick was for a woman to invite a man for sex, take him somewhere a bit more isolated, and once he had his trousers down, a couple of burly men would appear to rob him. The idea was that the man would be too ashamed to report the theft to the police.
Perhaps this is what happened to Henry, and then they gave him a shove.
Or perhaps he slipped.
Or perhaps he got lost - it was dark, he'd been drinking - and was mugged.
The coroner’s jury weren’t sure. They had no suspects, nobody suddenly enjoying a suspicious windfall, nobody seen wandering the riverbanks late at night. So, they returned a verdict of ‘found drowned’, a verdict that was true, but left much unsaid.
Henry was buried in Glapthorn, and his brood of orphaned children raised each other.
Henry Barratt
1816-1864