A Rich Vein - and a Sad End

I am always pleased to hear from folk from around the world - none more so that those who I have been able to help wit their Beeston ancestors. This week I was pleased to hear from Trish Symonds from Australia who had extracted several pages of very interesting Beeston related stories from 19th century newspaper archives. I even discovered that my gt-gt-grandfather's brother - Thomas Hudston, then Beeston's postmaster - was killed on the railway crossing in May 1877.

But I was particularly struck by this poignant story from the Derby Mercury in March 1830 :

On the 26th ult., a coroner’s inquest was held at Codnor Park, in this county, on view of the body of Samuel Fletcher, late of Beeston, Nottinghamshire. The deceased had been begging in that neighbourhood for some days, and appeared unwell. On the day of his death he had applied to some miners there to let him lie down in one of their cabins, but was inhumanly refused. The poor fellow sat down near to a cabin door, and in two hours was found a corpse. Verdict – “Died by a Visitation of God”.

There is much in these extracts to explore and to develop into stories for this site and I certainly hope to do that - as always, keep visiting and watching for what's new about what's old !