On Tuesday 7 January 1891, Coroner Mr D Wighthead attended an enquiry into the death of a Sheffield woman called Agnes Broadhead which was held at the Bath Hotel, Broomhall Street. Agnes, had been just thirty-one years of age when she died the previous Saturday. The first witness was her husband, William who had a very sad tale to tell. He stated that he and his wife had lived at Aberdeen Street, which was just off Broomhall Street, Sheffield. The witness admitted that during the previous six years, Agnes had been addicted to excessive drinking and taking laudanum. On that Saturday alone she had drunk a quantity of whisky.
William told the inquest jury that his wife had been in the daily habit of taking two pennyworth of laudanum and a penny worth of paregoric, which was a camphorated tincture of opium. He reported that on the night of Friday 4 January 1891, he had left his wife who was ‘beastly drunk’ and took their youngest child, a girl also called Agnes, to his mothers house. All that day his wife had been drinking gin and whisky and the witness described himself as being ‘sick at heart’ of seeing her in such a condition. Around 5.40 pm a female neighbour came and told him that his wife was dead.
When William returned, he found his wife in the kitchen lying on a hearthrug and he could not help but notice that there was an empty laudanum bottle on a shelf in the kitchen. When one of the jury asked the witness if he had any employment, the poor man told him that he was consumptive and was therefore forced to receive money every week from a sick club. However, he did mention that Agnes was employed at a tin makers in Arundel Street, Sheffield and that she earned a ‘great deal of money there.’ Mr Wightman then asked him if Agnes had any insurance and he told him that she had. He said his mother had insured her life for £14, exactly twenty-two years previously.
Describing his married life, William said that his wife would ‘drink like a fish’ for weeks on end. When she did manage to have a day without alcohol however, she could not sleep and that’s how she got into the habit of taking laudanum in order to sleep. As an illustration he said that on New Years Eve, Agnes came home helplessly drunk and continued to drink all night and the following day. Another juror asked William whether he had tried to prevent his wife from drinking so much. The witness told him that he had tried to do so, but she had threatened him and the children with a poker on several occasions when he had.
A neighbour, a woman called Florence Cockayne confirmed Williams account and said she had known the deceased for about two years. Over the Christmas and New Year period, she had only seen Agnes sober once. Florence told the coroner that around 6 o clock the previous Friday, little Agnes came to her house and told her that her mother was dying. The witness stated that she went straight away next door and found her mother unconscious and very white in the face. Florence called a surgeon, but the poor woman was dead before he arrived. She too reported seeing the empty laudanum bottle on a shelf near her and little Agnes told her that her mother had drunk from the bottle before she died.
The coroner summed up for the jury calling it a ‘very bad case’ before the jury retired for a short while. When they finally came back into the courtroom, it was evident that they had some deep discussions on the case. To admit that they possibly suspected that the poor woman had ended her own life, would have led to some serious concerns for William and his family. Therefore when the coroner asked them for their verdict, they simply recorded that ‘in their opinion death was from excessive drinking of alcohol, aggravated by the use of laudanum.’