This is the record of the death of William Wagstaff, the father of Mary Ann Wagstaff Millington, Henry Wagstaff, etal.


XVIII. Death of William Wagstaff

STRANGE DEATH

On Wednesday night between ten and eleven, William Wagstaff, market gardener of Lower Caldecote, and his two sons went to the Grange to clear out a closet. When they had loaded the cart with the first load they went away to empty it and were absent about a quarter of an hour. On their return hey found their father at the bottom of the closet quite dead.

How he got in they were not able to say as he was left all alone. The hold is about three feet deep.

The Bedford Mercury, Sat. 19th January 1878 under Northill.

DEATH FROM SUFFOCATION

On Friday last, January 18th an inquest was held at the King's head public house before M. Piper, Deputy Coroner, on view of the body of William Wagstaff, aged 52 years, a notice of whose death appeared in our last. Arthur Wagstaff on being sworn said, "I live at Lower Caldecote in the parish of Northill. My father was a Market Gardener. On Wednesday night my father and my brother went to clean a cesspool out at the grange. We started at five minutes to ten. When we got there we began to fill two tubs. When we had filled them my brother and I went away to empty them in a field about a quarter of a mile off. When we got back we missed father. My brother called out to him but could not make him hear. We looked into the cesspool and found him with his head under the stuff. We could see his back; we lifted him out. He was quite dead. The stuff was four feet deep after we had taken a load away. My father was perfectly sober when we left him."

Francis Young said, "I am a surgeon practicing at Biggleswade. I was called to the deceased on Wednesday night last. I got to the Grange about ten minutes past eleven. I found him quite dead. He had evidently been suffocated."
The jury recorded a verdict of Accidentally suffocated by falling into a cesspool.

The Bedford Mercury, Sat. 2nd Jan. 1878, under Lower Caldecote.

Here are two newspaper reports on the death of William Wagstaff. The "other brother" was my grandfather Henry. Somewhere I have another article that show him by name.

Henry's children didn't know anything about this. They sensed that there was something unusual about him and my mother thought that he had probably committed suicide.

It must have made such an impact on Grandpa that he never would talk about it.