Margaret Thomas

Margaret Thomas was found floating in East Dock on the morning of Friday 2 May 1902.

She was the wife of a coal trimmer and had lived in Richard Street, Barry Docks but had separated from him in November 1901 and gone to her home in Cefn Cribbwr but later went to Cardiff.

Her husband said that he last saw Margaret Thomas alive on 21 April 1902 in Cardiff when he had a conversation with her and that they parted at the bottom of St Mary Street at about 8.05pm when he left her to catch his train back to Barry.

He said that she had been under the influence of drink when he had left her but that had not quarrelled. He said that he had given her 7s 6d the day before and that when he left her she had told him that she had no money.

A woman that lived in Maria Street said that Margaret Thomas came to stay at her house a fortnight earlier having previously been in a situation with a neighbour and noted that on one occasion her husband called for her at her house.

She said that on 21 April 1902 that Margaret Thomas left the house for town and that shortly after her husband called for her and she told him that Margaret Thomas had gone into town.

She said that Margaret Thomas returned to the house at 11am and she told her that her husband had called for her and she went back out to look for him and she didn't see her again.

She noted that Margaret Thomas had told her the same day that she had a situation at the Cambrian Inn. She added that Margaret Thomas often came home drunk and that at times she had been in very low spirits and had wished that she was dead.

Margaret Thomas's body was found in the water at the top of East Dock lying under a timber float by a police constable. He said that he removed her body to the mortuary and that when he searched her clothing he found two letters and a pawn ticket in her pockets.

The doctor that examined her body at the mortuary said that he thought that she had been in the water for between eight and ten days and that she might have drowned on 21 April 1902.

He said that there were no marks of injury and that her cause of death was drowning.

It was noted that East Dock was about a quarter of a mile from Maria Street.

When the Coroner summed up he remarked that it was satisfactory to know that there were no marks of injury on her body and that the discolourations on her body were due to decomposition.

The jury returned an open verdict of found drowned.