The Northern Daily Times. — 1857-05-12 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

DEATH IN BOLTON WORKHOUSE THROUGH VIOLENCE.  VERDICT OF WILFUL MURDER.  On Thursday evening an enquiry was instituted at the Bolton workhouse, before Mr. Johh Taylor, coroner, and a respectable jury, touching the death of an old woman, 70 years of age, named Isabella Lougworth. Deceased was a widow, and formerly kept the Victory publie.house in Halliwell, but for the last ;seven months had been an inmate of the lunatic ward in the workhouse, she being of weak intellect. It appeared from the evidsnce of Esther Ashcroft. nurse in charge of the female idiotic and insane inmates, that the deceased slept in a room partitioned off from .a room occupied by a lunatic namel Nancy Horrocks, and it was necessary to go through Horrocks's room to the deCeasecrs. •The bedroom door of deceased's had the bolts on, and also a lock, but the lock was not used ; the bolts, which were outside the .door, but in Horrocks's bedroom, were, however., bolted on Saturday' night, as usual, and the door of llorrocks's was also bolted and locked by the nurse, so that, although neither of these inmates could get out into the ward, there was nothing to prevefit'llorrocks from 'unbolting the room of the deceased and going in. It appears that about three o'clock on Sunday morning the nurse, whilst attending a dying woman in another morn, heard a scream proceeding from the deceased's room, and on going there found the deceased lying on the floor, and the lunatic Horrocks standing beside her in an excited state. Deceased was crying out, " Oh, dear, she's jumped on me I" and on the nurse asking Horrocks what she had been doing, she came out with an oath and said, " Oh, she's not kilt yet I she's not kilt yet I" 'Deceased had been mach injured about the breast and shoulders, as. if Ahe had been dragged out of bed and violently abused. Deeeased was got into bed, and Horrocks was removed. Deceased has not since been able to glee any sensible account of the occurrence, nor has Horrocks, her only reply to any question being, " Oh, she's not dead yet I" About ten o'clock on Sunday forenoon deceased was removed to the hospital, where she died about one o'clock on Thursday morning. Mr. Fergusson, medical officer to the workhouse, said, that in his opinionS-deeeaSed-ehuld hot-have lived - long from the amount of disease previnualy existing, but it was difficult to say whether the violence she had received had shortened life; but there was a strong probability that the shock on one hand, and the violence, on the other, .may have hastened death. The jury agreed to adjourn, that a post mortem examination..of the body of deceased might. be-made by Dr. Chadwick; and on Saturday Dr. Chadwick reported that he had made a post mortem examination of the-body in the presence of Mr. Fergusson. Dr. Fergusson, Dr. Settle, and his own assistant, and had found various external injuries. His opinion was that with the disease of the brain deceased suffered from She could not have lived very hug; but she might have been living now, and he attributed her death 'to the external injuries. The coroner then summed up, and the jury, after consulting for a few minutes, unani.nopsly agreed to' a-verdict of "Wilful murder" against Nancy Horrocks, who will consequently have to take her trial -on the charge at the next Liverpool assizes.