Above photo, date unknown.

Above photo February 2007. Taken by Matt Martin.

Reynolds's Newspaper 09 September 1883.

THE OATH AT AN INQUEST.

Mr. Carttar, West Kent coroner, held an inquest on the body of Sarah Large, of 66, Warwick-street, Deptford, wife of the second engineer of the General Steam Navigation Company's steamer Tauris, at present on a voyage to Tonning. When the coroner was about to swear the jury he opened the book which was supplied by the landlord of the house, the "Lord Clyde," Wooton-road, Deptford, for the purpose of administering the oath to the jurymen, and discovered that instead of the New Testament it was a copy of "Tristram Shandy," and some delay occurred before the required book was forthcoming. (Tristram Shandy is a humorous novel by Laurence Sterne in 1759, full of double entendre's and inuendo's.)

The evidence showed that on Monday night last, at a late hour, the deceased left home to see a female friend part of the way to Catford, and at a quarter to eleven the attention of Police-constable Graham was directed to the deceased, who was sitting on a doorstep in Florence-road, New-cross-road, coughing violently. She was able to give her name and address, and was placed in a cab, but got worse on the road, and on arriving home was found to be insensible, and froth issuing from her nose and mouth. Mr. Hunt, the landlord, got her upstairs, and then called upon four doctors before he could get one to come and see deceased, and when he got back he found Mrs. Large was dead. The assistant to Dr. Kavanagh, of High-street, Deptford, deposed to making a post mortem examination of the body, and attributed the death to heart disease. Mrs. Flynn, of the "Rutland Tavern," Perry-hill, Catford, said she parted with deceased in Florence-road, but they had nothing to drink on the way. The jury returned a verdict that "Deceased died from syncope, from failure of the heart's action." The coroner complemented the constable for the promptitude he had displayed in getting the deceased home.