Cox, Mary 1883 November 10th Warminster
An inquest was held on Saturday afternoon at the Globe inn, Warminster Common, before the coroner (Mr T T Sylvester), on the body of Mary Ann Cox, aged 60 years. Deceased made a livelihood by charing, and the only person who lived with her was her son, Thomas Cox, who was a cripple and could not walk. Three weeks ago the deceased fell down in a fainting fit and hurt her back, and had to take to her bed. The son was unable to attend his mother, but managed to crawl on his hands and knees about the kitchen and prepare food for her, and the neighbours called in occasionally and took it upstairs to the mother.
The relieving officer, Mr George, was sent for, and was asked for parish relief; but as the cripple was doing a little bookbinding that someone had given him out of charity, he refused relief, and also objected to sending a nurse to watch the sick woman. The parish doctor, Mr T Flower, called in and prescribed for Mrs Cox. On Saturday when the little girl called in to take a cup of tea to the sick woman she found her dead, having died in the night.
The Coroner, in summing up, said the son deserved the highest praise for having attended his mother. It seemed very hard for a woman lying ill to be entirely dependant on a cripple, and the relieving officer ought to have allowed something for nourishment. If there had been a nurse attending the deceased she would probably have been alive at the present time. The jury returned a verdict of “Fatal syncope.”
Wiltshire Coroner's Inquests 1801-1920 