Age: 46
Sex: male
Date: 22 Aug 1907
Place: Langham Street, New Wortley
John Spencer Horner died about three weeks after receiving injuries on 28 July 1907.
The woman that he had been living with as his wife for the last seven years said that on 27 July 1907 she went out at about 10pm leaving John Horner lying drunk on the sofa in the kitchen.
She said that she returned around midnight with another man and that John Horner then threatened her and then got hold of the other man's throat and said that he would do for him. The woman said that there was also a dog in the house which also sprang at the man.
She said that John Horner then said that he was going to get a poker and finish him at which the strange man then picked up a water jug and either hit John Horner with it or threw it at him.
She said that John Horner then picked up a coal rake and as he was going up the stairs he fell and said 'I'm done'.
The woman said that if the man hadn't have hit John Horner with the jug that he would have killed them both.
The next day John Horner went off to work and did so for a couple of days but then had to stay in bed.
A doctor was called but he told him that he had fallen down the cellar steps and that a pitcher that he had had in his hand had caught him on his head.
When his sister came to see him in bed and had sat with him she said that he didn't tell her how his injuries happened.
His post mortem stated that he had a fractured skull and an abscess had formed on his brain but that his death was due to heart failure following upon the injury.
An open verdict was returned.
see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
see Yorkshire Evening Post - Friday 23 August 1907