The Potteries Examiner : — 1876-04-01 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

TERRIBLE TRAGEDY AT WEDNES BURY.  - On Monday morning Thomas Stevenson, labourer, of I the Vicarage, Weduesbury, committed suicide, after having net his dwelling on fire ; and some of the rir. cumstances surrounding the case invest it with a peculiarly painful character. It appears that about two years ago the unfortunate lam lost his wile, mei at times since then he has lived alone, and at other times has had the companionship of one of his daughters— Elizabeth, now aged about sixteen—who,when not with him, has been in service. On Saturday night this girl went with a married sister, named Bardell, to the police station, and complained that her father hail been guilty of certain gross improprieties, she having slept in the some room as himself ; but Superintendent Holland, at carefully questioning tier came to the conclusion that, even assuming the alleg.4 iinproprities to have been committed,she had in some eegree been an assenting party, and that, under the circumstances, he would not be warranted in arresting the father on his own respousibility. He accordingly ad-ised her to remain with her married sister in Camp-street until Monday I morning, and then to visit him again for the purpose of being sworn to her information. At mid-day on Sunday the sisters returned, and sta,ed tat their father was drinking, and threatening to set fire to the cottage, and desiroy himself; bat on Police-constable Yam, going to the Vicarage he found that all was quiet, and the father out of the way. On Sunday eight, between niiie and ten, in consequence of a similar complaint from the deceased's son, Sergeant Curtis and Police-Constable Hodgetts were sent to the cottage; but then the deceased was asleep, and he Was allowed to sleep on, his 400 stating that he would be 'all right " when he awoke. Nothing more seems to have been heard of him till between seven and eight o'clock on Monday morning, when the neighbours discovered that the cottage— ft one-story building, divided into three rooms—was on fire. Fortunately, it was in so damp a condition that it I burnt but slowly, and they had but little difficulty in subduing the flames. Having done that they discovered that Stevenson lay on his bed in one of the rooms, quite dead, and fully dressed, and with a terrible gash along the left side of the neck, evidently cut with a razor, which lay on the bed Imside hiss. Saperintendent Moore and Police.constable Brown,who soon afterwards visited the place, discovered two letters which he hail written, the one being addressed to his daughter, and the other to "the press," both, it is stated, containing a denial of his daughter's allegations against hhn, an-I assigning another reason for his self-destruction. There were also memoranda addressed to her, telling her she would find her boxes containing her things in the garden (where he had placed them), and desiring her to inform his brother Joseph, of Hickson, near Stafford, of his death. An examination showed that the cottage had been set on fire in two places, and with considerable deliberation; a fire of coals having actually been built up in the one case under a chest of drawers. Msch of the furniture was destroyed. The tragic affair caused much excitement in the town.