Baby

The body of a newly-born female child was found in a cul de sac off Granville Road off Beamsley Road in Shipley.

The inquest into the child’s death concluded on Wednesday 19 June 1957 where it was heard that the police had interviewed between 8,000 and 10,000 people in an effort to trace the child's mother.

The child's body had been wrapped up in a sheet and placed in a brown paper carrier bag and was found in the cul de sac at about 9.30pm on Wednesday 30 January 1957 by a patrolling policeman.

The pathologist that carried out the post mortem on the child said that it had lived for 15 minutes and had had a separate existence and that when he carried out the post mortem that the child had not been dead for more than 48 hours. He said that there were no marks of violence on the child's body and that the cause of death was lack of expert attention after birth.

The police said that during their investigation into the child's death that they had spoken to every householder within a half mile radius of where the child was found and that those interviews themselves had involved between two and three thousand householders.

They added that their enquiries had also taken them further afield across a wider area and had included speaking to doctors, midwives, hospitals, clinics, chemists, welfare workers and officers, laundries and many other people.

In addition they said that they had also made a check on all women known to be pregnant and expecting a child in January 1957.

When the Coroner summed up he said that whilst they knew the cause of the child's death that they did not know the manner and suggested that the jury return an open verdict, which they did.