Skip to main content

Childhood Deaths - William Henry Allsop

William Henry Allsop (1873 - 1875)

William Henry Allsop is another child in my family who drowned unnecessarily. This time in a bucket of water. William was the second child of my great great grandparents, William Henry Allsop and Mary Ellen McInerney of Alberton, Victoria.

The inquest into his death was held the day after he died. It must have been so difficult for family members to give evidence so soon after his death. His mother and grandmother tried in vain to save his life.

Mary Alsop on her oath. I am the wife of William Henry Alsop and reside at Alberton. The deceased William Henry Alsop was my child. He was two years and nine months old. About 12 o'clock yesterday I was at my mother's house with the child. I last saw him alive about 12 o'clock yesterday, when he was sitting at the table in my mother's house. A few minutes afterwards I missed him and went to look for him, and in about ten minutes I found him in a water cask, which was sunk level with the gound at the corner of my mothers house. There was about one foot of water in the cask. The deceased was head downwards in the cask, the head under the water and his feet just above the top of the cask. 
I and my mother took deceased out of the cask, and bathed him with hot water for some time, holding him face down on my knees while doing so. There was no appearance of life in the deceased when we found him, but he was missed so short a time, that I scarcely thought he could be dead. 
After bathing deceased we laid him down, and kept rubbing him for a long time, but saw no signs of returning life. 
About two o'clock pm my husband went to give notice of the death to the police. The butcher was at my mothers house at the time I missed deceased  and when the body was found. The butcher had the meat cart with him. I think it likely that the deceased might have left the house to look at the butchers cart but I do not know.
I did not notice any cover on the cask lately.


PRO VIC VPRS 24 UNIT 331 FILE 980/1875.

William Henry Allsop was one of the older brothers of my great grandmother Rose Allsop (Merchant).

Comments

  1. Hello! William Henry Allsop is my 3rd Great grandfather :-) and I would love to put you in my family tree :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Shana please contact me on the view my complete profile link.
      Sharon

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Caroline Chisholm

I am currently in England visiting my daughter who is working in London. Naturally I decided I would have to spend some time on genealogical pursuits. The problem was where would I choose for a few day's retreat from London? In the end I decided to go to Northampton to visit the grave of Caroline Chisholm. Caroline is known as the immigrant's friend. She was a well known social reformer of her day. Why is Caroline significant to me and my family? You may recall that Caroline Chisholm was on the original $5 note in Australia. As well as her image there was a picture of a ship. That ship was the Waverley . Caroline agitated at the Home Office to reunite the wives and families of convicts with their husbands and fathers. On 22 June 1847 she wrote that she ‘had just left the Home Office and had obtained a passage per Waverley for forty-nine souls.’ SMH 9 August 1847, extract from letter 30 March 1847. My great great grandmother Matilda Agnew, her older siblings James, Joh

My WW1 soldiers (2) - Ernest Lee Dawson

Ernest Lee Dawson (500) (1885 - 1968) This is the second post in  a series of posts over the next few years to remember all the men in my extended family who enlisted in World War 1. So far I have identified 26 soldiers who enlisted between 20 August 1914 and 2 November 1918 and I feel sure I have missed some. Of the twenty six, five were killed overseas or died here in Australia. My aim is to publish these posts on the 100th anniversary of their enlistment. Ernest Lee Dawson (my great uncle) was the eldest child of William Henry Dawson and his wife Bridget Mylan. He was born in the Cooma district of NSW in 1885. On 25th August 1914, less than three weeks after the outbreak of the First World War Ernie, a farmer who lived at Old Bonalbo  enlisted in the 2nd Light Horse Regiment in Lismore. Ernie had previous military experience. In 1906, he answered an advertisement to join the Shanghai Municipal Council Police Force, as a recruit. He was appointed on 10th Ja