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| Alverstoke Parish Church |
In the June
quarter of 1882 the records show an unusual marriage with Richard Titheridge
marrying Mary Ann Titheridge in Portsea. They were first cousins. This was the first time I had come across
first cousins marrying and I was surprised to find that although the law
forbids certain relatives marrying each other, and there is a long list of
forbidden relationships, there is no law to stop first cousins marrying.
Richard
was born in 1845 in Alverstoke and was the son of William Titheridge and Jane
Ann Hewett (and descended from John Titheridge and Ann Quallat of
Cheriton). Richard was a shipwright at
Portsmouth Dockyard and was still unmarried and living at 6 Alver Road on the
1881 census.
Mary
Ann was born in 1846 in Alverstoke and was the daughter of William’s brother
Henry Titheridge and Agnes Taylor. In
the 1881 census she too was living in Alverstoke at 2 Park Street and she was a
dress maker.
In the
September quarter of 1882, three months after the marriage was registered, the
records show the birth of Richard and Mary Ann’s first child Ida Titheridge in
Alverstoke. This birth was followed by
William Richard Titheridge on 6 June 1883, Beatrice May Titheridge on 18 July
1885 and Daisy Mary in March 1889.
The
death record show that Ida’s death was registered in the same quarter as her
birth. While this was not an unusual occurrence in the 1880s the records fail
to tell the unusual story that followed.
Richard
and Mary’s first child died aged 7 weeks having been found dead in bed and an
inquest was held at the Red Lion Tavern in South Street Gosport by the county
coroner E Goble. It was the inquest into
the baby Ida’s death that hit the local news.
Below
is the account of the inquest into Ida’s death as reported in The Hampshire
Telegraph on 5th August 1882.
County coroner and a jury at variance
Yesterday
afternoon County Coroner (E. Goble Esquire) held an inquest at the Red Lion
Tavern, South Street, Gosport, on the body of Eda Titheridge, seven weeks old,
the child of Richard and Mary Ann Titheridge, a married couple, living in Upper
South Street, the husband being a shipwright in the dockyard at Portsmouth. The
deceased was found dead in bed, and the coroner, stating the facts of the case
to the jury, alluded to the practice of parents taking infants to bed with them
as a fruitful source of death. He was very sorry, he said, to have to sit as
coroner in cases of that description. People would daily read of cases of that
sort, and it must therefore, be bought prominently before the public that
children were constantly being smothered by being taken into bed with their
parents. There was not the least suspicion of all at wilful negligence in the
present instance, but in cases of illegitimate children there was not always
that absence of doubt.
Evidence
was then taken. From the testimony thus adduced it appeared that the child,
which was an only one, was put to bed with its parents about 11 o’clock on the
night of the second inst. On waking the next morning the father discovered that
the child was quite cold. Assistance was summoned and the baby was put into a
warm bath, but life was found to extinct.
The Coroner
(to the father): haven’t you read in the papers of children being frequently
smothered in this way?
Witness:
yes
Tthe
coroner asked witness if he could explain the fact that he, with 30 shillings
per week wages a shipwright in the dockyard, should have considered it
advisable to have that had a crib for the child, instead of running the risk
attending to having it in bed?
Witness
replied that the child was only seven weeks old, and it was not usual to
provide a crib to the baby got much older than that.
The
coroner: it ought not to be so.
A jury
man: Mister Coroner, is the question you have just put to that gentleman (referring
to the witness) legal?
The Coroner:
certainly
The jury
man: oh!
Another
jury man said he should be very sorry to have his child sleep away from him
A third
jury man: so should I
Another
jury man gave it as his opinion that the witness had only done the proper thing
in having the child in bed with him.
One of
the jury man who had previously spoken remarked that all of them did not
possess thousands a year in income
The Coroner:
the question is not one of money. It is whether you value the life of your
child
Doctor
R. O. Minchin, who had made a post-mortem examination of the body, was then
called. He said the primary cause of death was inflammation of the lungs of a very
insidious character.
In
summing up, the Coroner reiterated the remarks he had made in the opening, and
said that of course the jury did not see the number of cases which came before
him week after week. They might think it preferable that children should be
taken with parents into bed, but where this was done the utmost caution ought
to be used to see the child did not slip off the breast and get its head
underneath, or shift from the pillow underneath the clothes. The chances were
that parents slept heavily, the child struggled a little, not enough to wake
the wife and husband up, so fatal accidents happened. He felt that in very many
cases death arose from carelessness. Still, the jury had to deal with criminal
law, and he could only say that it was easy matter, in cases in which
illegitimate children were concerned to take a baby to bed, lie upon it, and
then say that death was caused accidentally. It was necessary to make those
remarks generally, as it was requested that the utmost caution should be
observed where children were taken into bed with the parents,
The jury
returned a verdict of “Death from natural causes”.
