Deaths in a Water Tank
It's not often that we hear of a death in a water tank. And even rarer that we hear of two. Perhaps because, nowadays, most water tanks hold about 10 litres for use in our water closets. Or perhaps because many of us no longer live or work on farms or factories. But then I listened to the GenealogyGems podcast from 8 December 2014. Lisa Louise Cooke stumbled upon the sad story of her husband's great-grandmother, Mary Ann Cooke of Tunbridge Wells, Kent. The newspaper report on 21 August 1908 of her coroner's inquest noted that she had been suffering for some years from her nerves. Her neighbours and her young son, by candlelight, found her body in a roof tank; she was dead at age 41. The newspaper report describes the layout of the house, the neighbour who cared for her in her last days, and the testimonies from the doctor and police. Verdict: death by drowning. We have a similar tale in our family. The Honey family has roots in Oxfordshire and an old-school visit to t...