From the Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald. 21 December 1867. Price 1d.

HORRIBLE AND FATAL ACCIDENT.

Last Monday afternoon, Mr. Coroner Payn, of Dover, and a jury, of which Mr. T. Brady was foreman, held an inquiry into the cause of the death of Mrs. Emily Winch, whose death occurred on Saturday evening under the circumstances detailed below:

Mary Myall said: I have known the deceased four or five years. She was the wife of John Winch, a mariner, residing in Margate. She was 30 or 31 years of age. I last saw her alive between 10 and 11 on Saturday night; she was then at the top of her steps in Cold Harbour. She told me to mind how I went down, or I might fall, as I was a stranger to the place, and as the steps had been altered. We had been together at the “Crown” public-house. There was no hand-rail to the steps. She fell head foremost as she was going down the second flight. I lifted her head up, untied her bonnet, and rendered all the assistance I could. I stopped with her a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes; and then procured my uncle and aunt's assistance; and we then got her into the house and placed her on the sofa. She did not speak after her fall, but appeared to try to do so once, when I called to her. I believe she was quite sober at the time - she had only one glass of beer and porter with me. I think the accident arose from the darkness, and because she missed her footing. She had one child, a daughter, between 11 and 13 years of age. She was not pushed down by any one. It was an accident.

By the Foreman:- I merely went home with her, because she asked me to do so, and said she was coming back. My aunt went for the doctor, who came shortly afterwards, and pronounced her dead. She did not meet with any violence till she fell from the steps. I don't know what she had been doing during the day.

Thomas Crunden, a mariner, said:- I have known the deceased some time. About half-past eleven on Saturday night, I was going to my home - No. 11, Cold Harbour - next door to where Winch lives, when I met my niece, who looked at me and was crying. I thought there was something the matter with my wife, when she told me the deceased had fallen down the area steps. Thinking it was nothing serious, I said, “What of that, we will pick her up.” We then went home, and, as Mrs. Winch did not speak to me, I was alarmed, and asked my wife to be quick with a light. She was sitting, and her head was reclining on a mat. She was dead and cold at that time, and appeared to have been dead a long while. I and the last witness then carried her into the room, and placed her on the sofa. I immediately sent for the doctor, and he came shortly alter - in about half-an-hour - and pronounced her to be dead.

Mr. W. P. Hunter, M.R.C.S., said:- Shortly after 12 on Sunday morning, I was sent for to attend to attend the deceased, in Cold Harbour. I went there immediately - it was exactly 20 minutes past 12 when I got there. I found the deceased lying on a sort of couch. There were no signs of life, and her hands and face ware cold. The only sign of violence I could discover was some blood trickling from the left ear. There was a mark across the forehead, produced by the blood flowing towards the top of the head, showing that the head was downwards at the time it was effused. On examining the place where I was told she had fallen, I found a spot of fresh blood on the mat at the bottom of the steps. Death was moat likely caused by a fracture at the base of the skull, and probably by dislocation at the neck. I do not think that life could have been saved if I had been called earlier. I think death was almost instantaneous, and that she might have been dead an hour before I arrived.

The Coroner having summed up, the jury returned a verdict of “Accidental death, by falling down some steps in Cold Harbour.”

Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald, Saturday 25 November 1882.

MARGATE WRECK.

On Wednesday, shortly after noon, some mariners in the look-out of the Seamen's Observatory saw a vessel founder near the Longsand, many miles from Margate. Two luggers - the Secret and the Enterprise - at once put off to the assistance of the crew, who it appears, had some time before (for their vessel first struck on the sands at 7 a.m.), taken to their boat and rowed to the Tongue lightship. On the lugger Enterprise nearing the lightship, the crew were hailed, and the captain, his wife, and the four hands of the submerged vessel were taken on board and brought safely into our harbour. On arriving, the woman and her husband were conveyed in a carriage by Mr. Luckett, who thoughtfully placed his vehicle at their service, to the "Crown Hotel," where they were kindly received by Mr. W. Jones, the hon. agent to the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society. The vessel was a German schooner, the Dahomey. Captain D. Banmann, from Corolininensiel to Oporto, with empty bottles; and, after it had struck on the sands it floated off, and subsequently foundered at stated above.