The Lady in Black; a Victorian melodrama
Last updated 05:38, Friday, 17 October 2008
While railway officials were investigating the causes of a fatal crash to the south of the Citadel Station at St Nicholas Junction, police were trying to identify the dead.
The accident happened in the early hours of a Sunday morning on July 10, 1870 when a south-bound mail train (which also carried passengers) was hit mid-on by a goods train, destroying a third-class carriage.
At the inquest, held in the boardroom of the Citadel Station on the next day, the jury examined the five bodies of those who had died in the crash, laid out on a series of tables.
Only one, a lady in a mourning dress, remained unidentified and the Carlisle Journal reported: “The unfortunate woman has been terribly mangled about the face and identification must soon be a work of great difficulty.”
Surgeons, said the article, “have taken steps to arrest decomposition as far as possible and prevent further discolouration, but these expedients can only have a temporary effect”.
Hopes were raised that evening when a telegram was received from a lady in the south of England making inquiries about her maid. The Journal said: “It is just possible this clue may lead to the discovery of her identity.”
However, the police were following other leads and readers had to wait until the Friday issue of the newspaper for the full story. “After the recovery of the body from the debris on Sunday morning, the dress of the unfortunate lady was searched for some paper or marks which might give a clue as to who she was, but there was a remarkable absence of all information of the kind.”
The report continued: “Neither purse nor pocket book, nor railway ticket, nor money, could at that time be discovered and a minute search failed to discover any marks upon her underclothing.”
She wore ear-rings, had a wedding ring and two other gold rings upon her fingers, said the newspaper. “Around her neck she wore a gold locket containing a portrait of a gentleman apparently about 30 years of age.”
When clearing the track on the Monday after the crash “a pocket book was found near the line containing, among other things, a Post Office receipt for a letter, registered in Edinburgh on July 8, addressed to Dr Hollingsworth of Rathfriland, County Down, Ireland.”
This was perhaps the breakthrough the police had been waiting for and the Journal stated: “Upon the chance of this having belonged to the unknown lady, a telegram was despatched to that address stating the circumstances and asking for further information.”
The next day a reply was received requesting further particulars, which were accordingly forwarded, “but the reply from Ireland seemed to be so long in coming that the city police and railway officials began to fear that they were upon the wrong track”.
Meanwhile, a finger-tip search of the crash site on the Wednesday morning produced more evidence.
This was a new purse containing a third-class ticket from Edinburgh to London, a receipt for the purse itself and for a card-case which had been purchased in Edinburgh.
The card-case, however, was missing and the only fresh hope was that a shopkeeper in Edinburgh might know something of the purchaser.
PC Scoone was sent to Edinburgh by the midday express to institute further inquiries.
Another clue had been found on the Monday afternoon; “a considerable sum of money, £80 in Bank of England notes was found sewed into the lady’s dress”, reported the Journal, adding “it was considered just possible that the numbers of the notes might be traced through some Edinburgh bank”.
But before PC Scoone could return Dr Hollingsworth arrived from Greenock at 7.30pm believing he could identify the woman.
The doctor arrived just in time, because the victim had been taken that day to the Dead House at the cemetery to await burial on Thursday.
Not a moment was to be lost and at 9pm, in the company of Mr Page, the surgeon, Dr Hollingsworth identified the body “as that of Ann Taite, a widow, 26 years of age, with whom he was well acquainted.”
The newspaper added: “The photograph in the locket which she wore was a portrait of Dr Hollingsworth.”
In a bizarre twist, at the beginning of August on the final day of the inquest, the coroner said: “I have been asked to relax the rule laid down at the last sitting of the Court and take some evidence as to the identity of the lady whose name was before unknown.”
It seemed, said SG Saul, the solicitor acting for the railway, that further needed to be heard as “the friends of the lady were desirous of taking out letters of administration”.
She had previously been identified, “but”, said the Journal report, “Taite was merely a pet name”.
Dr John Hollingsworth eplianed: “I am assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy with no fixed residence ashore being on board The Fort (a ship) at Greenock.”
Seeing the deceased on July 13 at the cemetery, in the company of Mr Page, “I knew the body to be that of Mrs Ann Willington, widow of the late Richard Willington of Portsmouth and afterwards of Dublin, last residing in York Street, he stated.
John Hollingsworth ended his evidence by saying that as far as he knew Mrs Willington’s husband “was latterly an officer in the merchant service and formerly as officer in the Royal Navy.”
Nothing further was said in court and no other mention was made of Mrs Willington in the newspaper.
She was buried at Carlisle Cemetery as Ann Taite but no stone marks her grave.
