Edward Elliott

Edward Elliott was found dead in the River Thames near Vauxhall Bridge.

His body was found floating in the water by a policeman in a launch on the afternoon of Sunday 15 June 1957. His body was then taken to Waterloo Pier police station.

At the inquest the police said that it was not possible to tell where the body had entered the water in relation to where it was found due to the different tides experienced.

Edward Elliott's brother went to identify his body, but was unable to recognise it although he was able to identify his suit and wallet. When he was asked whether he had recognised the scar on Edward Elliott's chin he said, 'At the time I never recognised anything'.

His bother said that Edward Elliott had worked as a paper warehouseman and that he had lived in 'digs' at 63 Stanbury Road in Peckham. He added that his health was good and that he had no money worries and that he had last seen him about a month or six weeks earlier.

When the Coroner asked Edward Elliott's brother whether Edward Elliott could swim he said that he could and that when they were kids that they used to swim a lot.

The pathologist that carried out the post mortem said that muscular decomposition was rather advanced due to the body having been in the water for two or three days. He said that he could find no internal injuries and determined that his cause of death was asphyxia from drowning.

The man that Edward Elliott had been lodging with in Stanbury Road said that he had been friends with Edward Elliott since Easter 1946 and that Edward Elliott had come to live with him at his house about three months earlier.

He said, 'I last saw Mr Elliott at 8.10pm on Wednesday, June 12. He was sitting on the step surveying the evening and off he went'.

He said that it was only when Edward Elliott didn't show up for tea the following day that he began to get worried as he had otherwise usually been so punctual.

The Coroner's Officer said that he had been to Edward Elliott's lodgings to have a look but that he had found nothing that might bear on his death.

When the Coroner summed up he said that there was nothing to suggest anything unusual from the evidence and an open verdict was returned.