MARY ANN MAY

SUDDEN DEATH.--A case of sudden of death occurred last Friday, at No. 11, Church Almshouses, when Mary Ann May, aged 54, was found dead in her bed. Deceased lived with her father, who is an almsman.

She had suffered for years from a spinal complaint, for which she had received medical advice, but not recently. On Thursday she was about as usual, and remarked to Martha Rumbold, a next door neighbour, that she had not been very well for two or three days. She had bread and butter and tea for supper, and retired to bed about nine o'clock.

The next morning (Friday), about nine o'clock, her father called her, but as she did not answer, he shook her and found she was dead. The father had heard deceased cough that morning shortly before six o'clock. These facts having been deposed in evidence before the coroner (Mr. Watson, Esq., M.D.), and a jury, of whom Mr. Charles Samuels was foreman, at the inquest held on Friday night at the "London Apprentice," a verdict was returned of "death from natural causes," the Coroner giving it as his opinion that deceased had passed away in her sleep.

Newbury Weekly News and General Advertiser - Thursday 25 March 1886