Kentish Gazette, 4 January, 1876. (Ashford)

SAD DEATH OF AN OLD WOMAN.

On Thursday evening an inquest was held at the "Prince of Orange", New Street, before the Coroner Delasaux, touching the death of an elderly woman named Ann Rumsey, wife of John Rumsey, bricklayer, in the South Eastern Railway Company's employ, who was found dead under the following circumstances:-

Police constable Henry Deposed: At half-past five o'clock late evening, in consequence of information I received, I went to the house occupied by the deceased and her husband in Engineer Place. I found the deceased lying huddles up, head downwards, at the bottom of the stairs, fully dressed, and quite dead. There was a candlestick and some pieces of candle about half way up the stairs, leading me to infer that she had fallen down in going up to bed. All the doors were fastened on the inside.

Edwin Stevens, occupying the house next door to the deceased, deposed:- About twelve o'clock on Tuesday night I was awakened from my sleep by a noise as of some person having fallen down in the next house. I observed to my wife that I feared "the old lady" had fallen out of bed. I felt fidgety about the matter, and I got out of bed and struck a light, but I heard nothing more, and I went to bed again. I knew the deceased's husband was away at work on the line that night.

Mr. Charles Arthur Nason, surgeon, who was called to see the deceased, said:- I found her lying in the room at the foot of the stairs. She appeared to have been dead some hours. From her appearance and the position in which she was lying I believed she died from suffocation.

The jury returned a verdict of accidental death from Suffocation.