The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-29 00:00:00

THE WIGAN MURDER.

NEW SPRINGS, Wednesday.
The inquest on the body of James Barton, a fire-
man employed by the Earl of Crawford at the
Bawkhouse-pit, Haigh, near Wigan, was opened
yesterday morning at the house of Mr. Holm%
New Springs, before Mr. C. Driffield, coroner for
the district.
James Watnough, a pony tenter at the pit, said
James Barton and his son John were the engineers
at the pit, the one working at night, and the other
during the day. He last saw the deceased about 6
o'clock, as he was leaving work on Friday evening,
the 2d inst. The following morning he reached
the pit about half-past three o'clock. He found the
pumping engine stopped, the cabin fire nearly out,
and lumps of coal lying on the cabin floor. Not
finding Barton, he went into the boiler-house and
shouted, but received no reply. He returned to the
cabin and put coal on the fire, and in doing so
noticed Barton's muffler lying in the grate half
burnt. Then the fireman, Matthew Rhoden, came.
They wondered where Barton had gone. He went
down to the boiler fires for a spadeful of fire. In
the middle he found it was quite white, the white
looking like burnt wood.
Matthew Rhoden confirmed this evidence.

John Barton, of Haigh, son of the deceased, said
on Friday night he met his father. He was going
to work. He seemed quite well, was dressed as
usual, and had a muffler on. The following morn-
ing Watnough knocked at the door to call him, and
said that the deceased was missing. He went to
the pit. The first traces of his father he saw were
some marks in the fire-hole. They were the im-
pression of fingers on the dirty wall opposite the
fire-hole. The crowbar with blood on it was the
next thing he saw, and at daylight he noticed spots
of blood near the cabin. His father wore a belt
round his body, to which was a little buckle. The
strap would be about an inch broad. The door-plate
of the furnace is about 16 inches wide, and it runs
back about 4 feet. The doors are folding ones, and
they meet in the middle. From the state in which
the witness found the fires he should think they had
been left from three to four hours. Men, both friends
and strangers, were in the habit of calling at the
cabin to smoke a pipe. They first thought hie
father was in the furnace from the discovery by
Armstrong of blood upon the furnace door shuts.
He did not know of any person against whom his
father had any grudge, nor who had any grudge
against him. He could not think of any reason why
his life should be taken, except for the sake of his
watch, which was missing. He was in good circum-
stances for a working man, but he never took any
money to his work. He never heard his father say
he knew anything about the man who attacked the
watchman at the Standish paper-mills. His father
was not on duty that night.
Mr. King said he was not sorry of the oppor-
tunity to set this matter right, as he said there was
a strong opinion that the persons who committed
the offence at Standish had committed this murder.
This showed that the old man was not on duty the
night of the attack at Standish.

: Thomas Barton, son of the deceased, and living at
Haigh, said about 5 o'clock in the morning he heard
his father was missing. Ho fired up at all the three
fires, and saw white ashes in all. It was suggested
that his father might have been put in one of the
furnaces, and it was said that if he had been placed
there fat would have dropped through into the ash-
hole. He had examined all the grids and found a h ard
cake of fat. George Armstrong and a young woman
were with him at the time. He said, when he found
the cake," Why, they'll have put him under here."
George Armstrong, of Blackrod, fireman in the
pit, said he reached the pit about half-past four.
Thomas Barton said, when he came up, that he could
smell something about the fire hole. He said he was
sure they had put his father there. Witness then
looked about and saw what be thought was blood on
the door of the furnace. Thomas went under the fire-
hole, and found a cake of what looked like blood. The
men in the cabin said this cake was " ochrey" coal.
He saw blood in the cabin on a form afterwards.
William Whalley, of Haigh, labourer, said—l was
in company with the deceased about 8 o'clock, with
William Wetherby. Barton then seemed as well as
ever I saw him in my life. He was dressed as usual.
Barton took out his watch while we were there, as
Wetherby's watch had stopped.
John Baker Edwards, of Liverpool, lecturer on
medical jurisprudence at the Royal Infirmary
School of Medicine, Liverpool, said—On the sth
inst, I received from the police some pieces of bone,
some fragments of clinkers, a piece of wood, and an
iron crowbar. I selected from the bones the portions
now produced, which I believe to be human, from
the following parts :—No. 1, portions of the occi-
pital bone of the skull; No. 2, basean of skull
f
o a:oldt5;;o
fangs of teeth, a fang of incisor da fa
Np
portion
i3o,nportion of arch dorsal vertebra; vpeorrtteiborna
o;
fNhoe.ad4,
lumber vertebra
shank, and joint of humerus; No. 6, portion of the
head and joint of femur. These bones have been
submitted to a very high temperature, which has
destroyed the internal structure, but the external
form has been well preserved. There can be no
doubt these are human bones. I made a chemical
and microscopical examination of the mass of clinker,
microscope I identified the corpuscules as h
and found it caked together by blood and under the
pieces of coal, turfunionadna
blood. The blood on some
portion of the cabin bench is also human.
no blood on the crowbar. (The pieces of bone men-
tioned°n above were produced and handed round for
the inspection of the jury.)
Chas. Edward Dunbar Shepherd, of Wigan, sur-
geon, gave evidence to the same effect.
The verdict of the jury was, " Wilful Murder
against some person or persons unknown."

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