On the evening of 31 Oct 1846, a 28-year-old man called Thomas Mullins was travelling from Derby to Nottingham in a third class carriage. He worked as a footman for the Reverend Curzon of Aston on Trent. At some point he realised he’d caught the wrong train, heading for Leicester. As the train slowed down at the old Sawley Station he jumped out, rolled over and one of his legs was run over by 3 carriages. He was taken by train to Nottingham Infirmary (now City Hospital) but died a few hours later. Midland Railway, Derby Station c1840 The inquest heard from John Bailey of Sawley who was a Midland Railway gate (level crossing) keeper on the Sawley-Breaston road and about 19 years old. One of his duties was to deal with trains which stopped there after 7pm. The evening Leicester train did not routinely stop at Sawley, but Bailey used a red light to signal for it to slow down as he had a parcel to give the guard. It slowed to about 2½ mph as he handed over the parcel and confirmed to the guard that no passengers needed to get on. As the train began to accelerate […]
Daily archives: April 1, 2025
On Monday 10th June 1889 an inquest was held at the Nags Head in Sawley on the death of Henry Cook, who’d been found dead at his aunt’s house two days earlier. The coroner was W.H. Whiston and the inquest jury were W. P. Bennett (chair), Joseph Birkin, Percival Bosworth, William Ward, Edward Kilbourne, Benjamin Allen, George T Lodge, John Bromley, Henry Bonser (landlord of the Nags Head), Albert Robinson, Reuben Bailey and Thomas Ironmonger. They heard that Henry Cook (25) was separated from his wife. Lately he’d been lodging with his aunt and grandmother in Hey’s Buildings in Sawley. He was out of regular work but had been doing odd jobs and gardening. HIs aunt, Emma Smith, identified the body. She said that there had been some ‘unpleasantness’ in the village which had disgraced the family. And as Henry couldn’t pay his way, she’d told him on the Wednesday that he’d have to leave the house. He told a friend, John Staples, that he’d got himself in trouble and didn’t know how to get out of it. He was tired of life, and he’d bought small amounts of laudanum (a tincture of opium and alcohol) at different chemist shops […]