Hi all Yet another query looking for help with my elusive Wright family! I have obtained the death cert for John William Froggatt who d in Ledbury, Herefordshire in 1944. the cause of death is given as " shock from multiple injuries received during a collision with a motor lorry. Accidental death". This actually gives some evidence towards a family story that he died after being run down by an American lorry. The informant section on the cert is as follows: Certificate received from the Deputy Coroner for South Herefordshire. Inquest held 9th May 1944. Now to get back to my query! Can anyone put me in the right direction to get details etc of this inquest please? When his widow Edith Froggatt died in 1949 her will mentions her sister Gladys Mary Stainsby Wright. She is the last member of the family and still evades every search I can think of! Any thoughts on this would also be much appreciated! As always, many thanks for the help and advice given over the years! Kind Regards Marian

Hi Marian....me again !! There is a death for a Gladys Mary Wright in 1975 in Ledbury, birth year 1890....co-incidence ?? Cheers, Brian -----Original Message----- From: sfhg-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:sfhg-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of e-mail marian.hopkins via Sent: 20 August 2015 12:28 To: SFHG@rootsweb.com Subject: [SFHG] Inquests? Hi all Yet another query looking for help with my elusive Wright family! I have obtained the death cert for John William Froggatt who d in Ledbury, Herefordshire in 1944. the cause of death is given as " shock from multiple injuries received during a collision with a motor lorry. Accidental death". This actually gives some evidence towards a family story that he died after being run down by an American lorry. The informant section on the cert is as follows: Certificate received from the Deputy Coroner for South Herefordshire. Inquest held 9th May 1944. Now to get back to my query! Can anyone put me in the right direction to get details etc of this inquest please? When his widow Edith Froggatt died in 1949 her will mentions her sister Gladys Mary Stainsby Wright. She is the last member of the family and still evades every search I can think of! Any thoughts on this would also be much appreciated! As always, many thanks for the help and advice given over the years! Kind Regards Marian ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SFHG-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2015.0.6086 / Virus Database: 4392/10471 - Release Date: 08/20/15

The survival of Coroners' records is very patchy and it is usually said that a researchers best chance of finding the details of the evidence given at an Inquest is to try and find a report of the proceedings in a local newspaper. However, in this case, the Inquest took place in 1944, a time when the size of newspapers was severely restricted due to the lack of paper. I suggest that you send an E-mail to Herefordshire Record Office, giving them the details on the Death Certificate and ask them if they hold the records of that particular Coroner. Where they survive, these records are normally closed for 75 years, so you will have a few years to wait before they enter the public domain, but it will be useful to know whether the record exists, or not. At the same time, you could ask for the name(s) of the newspapers that were circulating in the Ledbury area during May 1944 and whether they hold copies, either as original newspapers or on microfilm or microfiche. Also, The British Newspaper Archive at www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk now has an extensive catalogue of newspapers online and they can also be found on www.findmypast.co.uk . So, once you have the name(s) of the newspapers, you could make a search on one of those sites. If you have exhausted all the usual research material, your search for Gladys Mary Stainsbury Wright could get a boost later this year. The 1939 Register is due to be published by Findmypast and this is the document that was compiled in anticipation of WW2, kept up-to-date into the early 1950's and was used for the issue of Identity Cards and Ration Books. If Gladys Mary Stainsbury Wright was alive in 1939, she must be on this Register or she would have starved. So, you only have to be patient for a few more months! As the 1931 census was destroyed and there was no census taken in 1941, the 1939 Register is going to be a very important data source for family historians. Best wishes, Marion Woolgar Bognor Regis, West Sussex SFHG Member No: 3323