Beatrice Clarkson

Beatrice Clarkson died from what was first thought to have been natural causes, but her body was later exhumed following certain allegations.

She died on 6 September 1923 following a fortnights illness in St Thomas's Hospital. Following the allegations her body was exhumed, but a later inquest returned a verdict of death by natural causes.

She had been the young wife of a London waiter. They had been married less than four months, having married in May 1923.

She had been buried in Witney, Oxfordshire, in her wedding dress.

Her husband had worked at the Strand Palace Hotel in London.

Her mother said that Beatrice Clarkson had previously been engaged for about nine years altogether to a man in the Wallingford district. She said, 'She corresponded with him when he was at the front in the same regiment as one of her brothers. She was to have been married last spring, and she left Wallingford, where she had been a worker at the George Hotel for five years, in order to make preparations. She had been at home about a fortnight when her sister, an invalid for years, died. Whilst Beatrice was at home her engagement was broken off'.

She said that Beatrice Clarkson then became engaged to a waiter in a London hotel and that after a brief courtship they were married quietly at a parish church in Witney Green on 18 May 1923.

They then, during the summer, took apartments in Tennyson Street, Waterloo Road, where, in the middle of August 1923, Beatrice Clarkson was taken ill.

She was admitted to St Thomas's Hospital on or about 29 August 1923 and early the following week was reported to be in no danger.

However, on the Wednesday night, 5 September 1923, there was a return of grave symptoms, and on the following evening she collapsed and died.

Her cause of death, according to the London Evening News, was certified as pyaemia and uraemia.

When her husband was interviewed by the press at his house in Tennyson Street on the night of Tuesday 9 October 1923, where he and Beatrice Clarkson had lived for some months, he vehemently denied that there was to be an exhumation at all, and declared that there was no reason for it, and that he knew nothing of the issue of the order.

He was said to have then taken a photograph of his dead wife from his pocket and to have sobbed whilst looking at it.

He said, 'My solicitors and I have been telephoning to the Witney Coroner, and he told us that no order had been issued. I am taking libel actions'.

He further went on to say that Beatrice Clarkson's parents had come to call on him in a friendly way and had been in the house with him at the time and he then went to an upstairs room and when he returned, he said that her parents were unable to see any one, but that they also wanted to deny all knowledge of the exhumation.

He went on to note that Beatrice Clarkson had caught a chill and was ill at the house for some days under the attention of a doctor, and that she was then removed to St Thomas's Hospital, where, after eight days, she died of inflammation of the kidneys.

He said that after Beatrice Clarkson's illness had lasted a few days that the doctor attending her became dissatisfied with the course of her illness and secured her removal to St Thomas's Hospital where it was intended to perform an operation on her, however, after an X-ray examination, the operation was abandoned as unnecessary.

It was reported that at the same time that Beatrice Clarkson's husband denied that there was to be an exhumation, that one was being planned, but that its time was being kept a secret, and that it was to take place that morning, between 7 and 10am, in readiness for the inquest at Witney the following afternoon, the body being removed for a post-mortem examination.

At the inquest, the doctor said that the two main reasons that influenced him in ordering Beatrice Clarkson's exhumation were:

1. Six or seven doctors who attended her when she was in hospital were considerably puzzled as to her illness, the nature of it, and the real cause of it.
2. Rumours had begun to be spread to the effect that there were some suspicious circumstances connected with her death.

However, it was said that the post-mortem following her exhumation came back negative. Home Office analysts examined her organs but found no traces of poison or noxious substances.

The pathologist said that he was of the opinion that she had died from pyelitis, otherwise known as kidney disease.

Her inquest then concluded that she died from natural causes.

At her inquest her husband said that he had previously proposed to Beatrice Clarkson in 1917 but had been refused but that he had later met her through a matrimonial agency, and they were married. At her inquest on 8 November 1923, he said that he had first met her whilst in service at a London hotel in 1916 and had then for some time corresponded, and that in January 1917 he proposed marriage but that she refused him, saying that she was already engaged to a soldier boy. He said that from that time until the early part of 1923 that he had neither seen her or corresponded with her but that after inserting an advertisement in a matrimonial paper, amongst the replies he received, was one from Beatrice Clarkson. However, he said that in reply he arranged for an interview in Oxford but that she didn't keep the appointment.

He said that he then went to her address in Witney and was shown into the front room and when Beatrice Clarkson came down she recognised him, saying, 'It's you', and that he replied, 'It's Beatrice'. He said that they then embraced and kissed, but that when he asked her why she wanted to marry that she told him to wait until they could talk without being overheard. He said that they then went to Oxford and that by the end of the day they were married.

When he was questioned over Beatrice Clarkson's illness, he said that he had done everything he could for her, and then burst into tears.

When he was questioned by Beatrice Clarkson's relatives over why he had never communicated with Beatrice Clarkson's parents during the period 1916 and 1919, or mentioned it to them until after Beatrice Clarkson died, he replied, 'No'. And then when asked why, he said, 'Why should I?'. When he was asked whether it was a fact that the renewal of that acquaintance had not come to light until after Beatrice Clarkson's death, he replied, 'That is so'.

He also denied that he had ever been unwilling for the hospital doctors to make a post-mortem.

Following the conclusion of the inquest, the Coroner said, 'If this inquiry has served no other purpose, it has silenced many rumours'. When the verdict was announced there was a tremendous outburst of cheers, which the Coroner made no attempt to suppress, however, the police managed to restore order.

Outside the court, a crowd of mill girls cheered Beatrice Clarkson's husband as he left.

Tennyson Street has since been demolished, but was once where the Whitehouse apartments are today, parallel with Waterloo Bridge, the A301.