Age: 40
Sex: female
Date: 28 Jun 1907
Place: 12 Queen Street, Spennymoor
Jane Ethel Parsons died after falling down some stairs on the morning of Sunday 26 June 1907.
A man was charged with her manslaughter but the bill against him was thrown out.
A man said that he saw another man help Jane Parsons up the stairs whilst drunk and then heard quarrelling and the man tried calling her foul names and that later Jane Parsons fell down the stairs. He said that he then saw the man tried come down the stairs with a bottle in his hand and say, 'I'll finish her', but that another woman took the bottle from him.
The doctor that examined her said that she died from a fractured skull.
Jane Parsons had lived with the man tried and her children in a room at 12 Queen Street in Spennymoor. Her children had been:
Her 17-year-old son said that they used the room they lived in as a bedroom and a living room. He said that he had not been in the house when the affair happened, but that when he later came home he found Jane Parsons on the floor in an unconscious condition.
A miner that lived next door to Jane Parsons said that on the Saturday night at about 11pm Jane Parsons came by his house when the public houses were closing. He said that she asked to go into the back yard and that after about 15 minutes his wife later asked him to get her away and so he took her to her room next door, noting that she was very drunk.
Another man said that he saw the neighbour help Jane Parsons upstairs and then heard quarrelling and heard the man tried call her foul names and that Jane Parsons later fell down the stairs and that he then saw the man come down with the bottle and say, 'I'll finish her off'.
He noted that he often heard them quarrelling and that it was nothing unusual to hear those words. He further noted that Jane Parsons had been addicted to drink.
The landlord said that when Jane Parsons's partner came down the stairs with the bottle that he and the other man took it from him, saying, 'Don't, the woman is dying'. He noted that the man had been holding the bottle by the neck in a striking attitude.
However, at the inquest, the jury returned a verdict of accidental death. However, the man was charged with causing her death at the Police Court and he was sent for trial at the Assizes. However, when he appeared at the Durham Assizes on Friday 8 November 1907 the bill was thrown out.
Queen Street has since been demolished, but was approximately in the centre of what is now the Festival Walk retail units car park.
see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
see Bridlington Free Press - Friday 05 July 1907
see Durham County Advertiser - Friday 08 November 1907
see Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer - Friday 08 November 1907
see Newcastle Daily Chronicle - Wednesday 03 July 1907
see Durham County Advertiser - Friday 08 November 1907