The Warrington Examiner. — 1875-05-08 (Warrington, Cheshire, England)

SUICIDE IN THE RIVER AT WILDERSPOOL.  An inquest was held on Tuesday at the house of Mr. Joseph Taylor, the Norton Arms, Latchford, before Mr. Dunstan, coroner, touching the death of Mr. Wm. Breakenridge, a master painter and decorator, of Upper Moss-lane, Manchester, who came by his death under the distressing circumstances detailed below. Mrs. Martha Breakensidge, wife of the deceased, identified the body as that of her late husband. On Friday afternoon the deceased left home saying that he was going to collect money, and that he would be back in an hour. He had been in ill-health since Christmas with the rheumatic, paralysis, and bronchitis. The deceased was of a very excitable nature, and was overburdened with work Although not a teetotaler he was not given to drinking. He was 64 years of age. There was nothing to upset him except his business anxieties. She had lived very happily with the deceased who had never threatened to destroy himself. The deceased had collected a sovereign in Manchester but expected more. Witness did not know of any business in Warrington, that would bring the deceased to Warrington. He had complained of buzzing pains in the head which she attributed to injuries resulting from falls from ladders, one of which he had so recently as two months ago. A young man, named William Leach, of Bridge Foot, Warrington, stated that on Friday night last at about nine o'clock deveised came into his mother's house, the Packet House, and called for a glass of beer with which he was supplied. He remained until eleven o'clock, at which hour he went out and went down Mersey-street. The following morning he came in several times, and again in the afternoon. He told witness that he had come from Manchester, he had got a job in Warrington, and that he was a painter and paper hanger. He said that he had 30 men in his employ, and that whilst away on drinking bouts his daughters paid the men. The deceased was near upon intoxicated when he left the house of witness at two o'cicck. Witness refused to fill him a glass of beer, and the deceased said that he could do without the beer or witness. He did not see deceased again alive. The deceased appeared rather strange. Charles Wright, of Rose and Crown yard, Warrington, a steel wire drawer, stated that at four o'clock on Saturday afternoon he was on the river side, whei he saw the deceased, who stood still, looking right and left, apparently with a view to seeing whether he was observed. The deceased pulled off his hat and laid it on the bank, walked down to the river's edge, put his hands into his coat pockets behind him, and jumped into the river. Witness cried out for assistance, and Mr. Brown came out. They got a plank, and failing to reach him on it, witness pushed a boat from the bank into the river' and got hold of the head of the deceased, and pulled him to the side. The deceased was in the water half an hour, but did not sink, owing to its shallowness. He put deceased, who was just alive, into the boat, and with the assistance of Mr. Brown he got him on to the bank. Mr. Brown fetched some whisky, which was given to the deceased, but he was insensible and unable to swallow it. He died after breathing a few times. The jury returned a verdict of "Suicide during temporary insanity."