Age: 11
Sex: female
Date: 30 Sep 1911
Place: Skegness, Lincolnshire
Amy Smith was found drowned in the sea.
She had been with her family to Skegness on 9 September 1911 where they hired deck chairs on the beach almost directly opposite the Clock Tower. Amy Smith then asked if she could go paddling which she was allowed to do as long as she kept between the helter skelter and the joy wheel and to come back to where they were sitting.
Amy Smith later came back and they had some sandwiches and then Amy Smith asked if she could go paddling again and was allowed under the same directions. She was watched paddling for a while until her brother drew attention away to the sand and when Amy Smith was next looked for she was not seen.
When her aunt couldn’t see her paddling she was not alarmed and thought that she must have been behind the crowds of people that were also in or by the water’s edge.
However, the family later became concerned and went looking for her amongst the crowds until 9pm.
The police said that although Amy Smith had been paddling amongst hundreds of other people no one had seen her or noticed anything.
She was found a fortnight later washed up just a short distance to the south of where she had been paddling.
The coroner said it was strange that she could have been paddling amongst so many people but for no one to have noticed anything.
see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
see Leicester Chronicle - Saturday 30 September 1911