The Morning Post on Tuesday, the 7th of October 1845 was reporting a significant number of accidents involving children. It highlighted only too well the plight of youngsters during this era and how their lives were quite frequently endangered by the lack of care, attention or action from adults around them. Articles like this, apart it’s historic social value, also provide historians and researchers with crucial detail such as names and related places.
Numerous Accidents
During Saturday and Sunday the following numerous and serious accidents occurred, and the persons injured were admitted to St. Thomas’s and Guy’s Hospitals: – the first case was that of Harriet White, aged five years, his parents resided in Three Tun Court, Borough. She had accompanied them to Malling, in Kent, for the purpose of “hopping”, and whilst they were busily employed had their work she approached to nearer fire which had been kindled in the open air to prepare their food, when the windblown all the flames towards her, and her clothes became the ignited, and she was burnt all over her body in a frightful manner.
The second case was that of Jane Murphy, five years of age, residing at number 12, Holland street, Blackfriars road, who having been left in the care of two children younger than herself whilst her father and mother were out drinking, opened the second floor window and endeavoured to get hold of a piece of line which hung outside, and in so doing fell headlong to the pavement below, from a height of thirty feet, causing a severe concussion of the brain and several internal injuries.
The third was that of Eliza brown, aged nineteen, who, whilst quarrelling with some of her companions in the street, was pushed off the kerb, and by her fall dislocated her shoulder bone.
The above were conveyed to St. Thomas’s Hospital. At Guy’s the following were also received:- with Ian Jones age of seventeen years, in the employ of Mr. Dalton, Potter, High Street, Lambeth, who, whilst superintending the delivery of some goods in his master’s warehouse, inadvertently stepped backwards and fell through a trap door in the floor which have been left open, and fractured his shoulder.
The last case was that of John Johnson, of Cornwall road, Lambeth, who was attending to some pigeons on the top of a high house, when his foot slipped and he was precipitated from the roof to the street, whereby he sustained a concussion of the brain and other injuries.
Ian Waugh
Old British News
