John Clark

John Clark was found floating in the River Mersey at the entrance to Morpeth Dock.

He had lived at 37 Rydal Street in Liverpool and had been an army pensioner and for the last sixteen or seventeen years had been employed at the London and North-Western Hotel in Liverpool as a commissionaire.

He had left home before dinner on the Sunday 10 May 1903 and was found floating in the Mersey at the entrance to Morpeth Dock early on the Monday 11 May 1903.

A doctor that carried out his post mortem said that he found several injuries on his head, bruises on the back of both wrists and a cut on the under surface of the fourth finger of the left hand. However, he said that none of them were serious and that he didn't think that they would have caused unconsciousness.

He said that they might have been very easily caused by a stick that was found on the dock wall and noted that as a matter of fact that the stick fitted into the large dinge in the top of the hat found with it. It was also found to have had three hairs on it which corresponded with the colour of John Clark's hair. However, he said that there was no blood on the stick.

He said that John Clark's stomach was full of water but that all his organs were perfectly healthy. He said that his brain was not damaged and that his cause of death was suffocation consequent upon immersion in the water.

He said that his injuries to his body must have been received before death and that they might have been caused by him falling against something on the ground.

He added that in his opinion that John Clark had been conscious when he had gone into the water, otherwise his stomach would have been empty.

A policeman said that at about 2am on the Monday 11 May 1903 that he had been informed by a dock-gateman that he had seen a man under the influence of drink on bridge No 7 but said that when he went there he saw no one. He said that later, at about 3.45am that a man informed him that he had found a hat and stick on the dock wall near to the gun and had given them to a dock-gateman. The policeman said that he then searched the spot described and saw John Clark floating face downwards in the entrance to Morpeth Dock.

He said that John Clark's body was then taken to the mortuary at Livingstone Street.

John Clark's son said that John Clark had lately been much troubled with rheumatism that had affected very much the way in which he walked  and said that he had known John Clark to have falls recently.

When the Coroner summed up he said that the case was a most peculiar one. He said that the circumstances as disclosed in the evidence were circumstances of great suspicion. He noted that there were wounds on John Clark's body in positions which rendered  them most unlikely to have been caused by accident and that another peculiar circumstance was that of the hairs found on the stick. He added that there was no evidence as to why anybody should have assaulted John Clark or why he should have committed suicide.

However, he noted that with regard to his condition that the evidence showed that John Clark had had more to drink than was good for him and that he might have fallen into the water entirely by accident.

The jury then returned an open verdict.