Barrhead Newspapers

[Morag]

I have just found my 1st suicide and would like to find out some more. Would this be reported in a local paper , and if so can anyone suggest where to look ?
The person was Agnes Farquhar who poisoned herself with arsenic - she was of unsound mind according to the RCE !
It happened in May 1894 in Barrhead - she had recently given birth to her 8th child in the April , so possibly the poor woman had post natal depression ? Her husband went to to have another 7 children with his next wife !
I know I shouldn't be excited by this poor woman's misfortune , but it does make a change from TB !
Also - was arsenic freely available to ordinary people at that time ?
Thanks
Morag

[LesleyB]

Would this be reported in a local paper , and if so can anyone suggest where to look ?

There are microfilms of local papers in the Barrhead library, but I'm not sure how far back they go.
http://www.eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk/heri ... ntre-3.htm

Ah, I see it says "from 1897 onwards"...so back to the drawing board!

Also - was arsenic freely available to ordinary people at that time ?

Yes, I think so - no refs. for that though, so I may be wrong! Just going from what I think I remembered hearing on the Victorian Pharmacy program on TV.

Best wishes
Lesley

[LesleyB]

In the western world, Arsenic was used extensively to treat syphilis before penicillin was introduced. It was eventually replaced as a therapeutic agent by sulfa drugs and then by antibiotics. Arsenic was also an ingredient in many tonics (or "patent medicines").

In addition, during the Victorian era, some women used a mixture of vinegar, chalk, and arsenic applied topically to whiten their skin. This use of arsenic was intended to prevent aging and creasing of the skin, but some arsenic was inevitably absorbed into the blood stream.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_poisoning

To us, arsenic is just a deadly poison that is best to stay away from.
But, in Victorian Britain, it was everywhere.

British soldiers in India mixed it with black pepper to create the Tanjore pill, an anti-venom for snake bites; doctors prescribed it as a cure for conditions including rheumatism, worms and morning sickness; and even clothing and wallpaper which were painted green - there was a period in Victorian Britain when there was a craze for the colour green - could make a person feel sick due to the arsenic used in producing the colour......

....Arsenic was also common in things such as shampoo, women's beauty treatments and was even used as domestic rat poison. This often led to confusion, with mothers mistaking it for a coooking ingredient and accidentally killing their families after putting it into their food. In the two years after Victoria's accession to the throne in 1837, 506 people died from inadvertent consumption of the poison.

http://forums.canadiancontent.net/histo ... itain.html

[LesleyB]

If you get really into it, it seems there is a whole book devoted to the subject!!

The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work, and Play
Arsenic is rightly infamous as the poison of choice for Victorian murderers. Yet the great majority of fatalities from arsenic in the nineteenth century came not from intentional poisoning, but from accident. Kept in many homes for the purpose of poisoning rats, the white powder was easily mistaken for sugar or flour and often incorporated into the family dinner. It was also widely present in green dyes, used to tint everything from candles and candies to curtains, wallpaper, and clothing (it was arsenic in old lace that was the danger). Whether at home amidst arsenical curtains and wallpapers, at work manufacturing these products, or at play swirling about the papered, curtained ballroom in arsenical gowns and gloves, no one was beyond the poison's reach. Drawing on the medical, legal, and popular literature of the time, The Arsenic Century paints a vivid picture of its wide-ranging and insidious presence in Victorian daily life, weaving together the history of its emergence as a nearly inescapable household hazard with the sordid story of its frequent employment as a tool of murder and suicide. And ultimately, as the final chapter suggests, arsenic in Victorian Britain was very much the pilot episode for a series of environmental poisoning dramas that grew ever more common during the twentieth century and still has no end in sight.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Arsenic-Century ... 0199574707

[Currie]

Hello Morag,

I checked the Glasgow Herald, Aberdeen Journal and Dundee Courier around that time and nothing jumped out at me. Suicide was a very popular pastime then, and was often reported, but I suppose some may have missed the news. You get many hits from a 19C newspaper search. All sorts of methods applied, including drowning, poison, cutting instruments, railways, dynamite, ropes etc often with absolutely no consideration for the poor people who had to clean up the mess.

If you could let me know the actual date of death and date of any enquiry I’ll have another go. I guess Glasgow would be the most likely of the abovementioned newspapers. If you want to have a search in the GH yourself you could try the following site. Just click on the snippet to get an idea of what it contains. Let me know if you find anything promising and I’ll check it out. http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs/

Here’s a copy of the Arsenic Act of 1851. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1851/pd ... 013_en.pdf I think it may have been in force until the 1933 Pharmacy Act. http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLin ... nalCode=AN

All the best,
Alan

[Rockford]

Hi Morag,

If the Barrhead Library does not have newspapers going back to 1894, you might want to contact the Local Studies Library at the Central Library in Paisley. They have copies of the Paisley and Renfrewshire Gazette and the Paisley Daily Express for that period and might be able to look it up for you if provided with the date.

Although Barrhead is in East Renfrewshire now, it's close enough to Paisley to perhaps merit a mention. However, as Alan mentioned suicide was very common and it maybe whether it would make the papers depends what else was happening around the time it happened.

You can find their details here:

http://www.renfrewshire.gov.uk/ilwwcm/p ... iesLibrary

Best wishes

Brian

[Morag]

Thanks to everyone for their responses - I hadn't realised all these things about arsenic !
I will contact Paisley library and see if they can come up with anything.

Alan - Agnes Farquhar (nee Dunlop ) died on 21st May 1894 Hillside , Barrhead. The RCE was dated 15th June 1894 - so does that mean that there was an enquiry into the death , and if so , will there be the details of that available to view (NAS ? )

Thanks again - I now have some things to look at to take this further.

Morag

[Currie]

Back again Morag,

I still couldn’t find anything about it I’m sorry to say.

I haven’t really had much to do with RCEs, only ever had one, for a little girl who fell down a flight of stairs. I can’t see anything in the NAS online catalogue and it looks as if they’ll only have the referrals to the Procurator Fiscal that resulted in a Fatal Accident Inquiry. See here re suicides viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1399&hilit=fatal+accident+suicide

Best of luck with the library,
Alan

[Rockford]

Hi Morag,

Following Alan's comment, the chances are that the information on the Register of Corrected Entries will be the only additional information available.

Where a death was sudden or unexplained or (I think) where no medical attendant was present, a report was sent to the Procurator Fiscal who would apparently instruct a limited investigation to establish either cause of death or the events that led to it - probably to make sure that no disgruntled relative had 'done away' with the deceased! For example, on the death extract for one of my relations. under cause of death it just states 'Dropped Down and Died", as there was no medical attendant and, as far as her husband was concerned, that was just what had happened. Her RCE records that the doctor who had seen her several times over the course of the year before was contacted and provided a more exact cause of death, based on her medical history.

For two of my great great grandfathers, life also ended in circumstances which generated an RCE - one was hit by a train and the other killed himself by combining laudanum with a bottle of whisky. In both cases the RCE confirmed the events, but the background came from the local papers.

I seem to remember someone here stating that most of the Sheriff Court/Procurator Fiscal records were destroyed with only Linlithgow? being kept as an specimen example. As Alan says, the only real chance something 'legal' might still exist is if there was indeed a Fatal Accident Inquiry or, I assume, a High Court case in relation to the death - i.e. if it was established that someone else was responsible,.

Hope that helps,

Brian

[Morag]

Thanks again for all the comments.

It was the on the RCE that I discovered that the death had been suicide - the death certificate just stated the cause of death was arsenic poisoning.

I have now found what a lovely person her husband was !
Agnes gave birth to their 8th child in April 1894 , killed herself in May 1894
Her husband Alexander had an illegitimate son with Agnes's sister in August 1895 - didn't marry her , but married someone else in October 1895 - going on to have a further 7 children with her before dying of TB in 1908.
I have previously had a widower marrying his wife's sister - understand that he needed someone to look after the children etc - but this takes the biscuit ! It makes me wonder if poor Agnes had found out that he was having an affair with her sister and this was the last straw.
It makes you realise that we don't really know what kind of lives our ancesters had.

I will keep searching as this has me intrigued.

Thanks again
Morag