Man killed on the railway

 

An inquest was held at the Globe Hotel, Wormley, on Monday, before Mr T. J. Sworder, coroner, and a jury of which Mr Henry Bigg was foreman, respecting the death of Robert Cornhill, 24, a farm labourer, who was found killed on the Great Eastern Railway on Saturday night.

Isabella Cornhill, the widow, who lives at 4, Pleasant Place, Wormley, said the deceased had been depressed for about a fortnight as if he had some trouble, but he did not tell her anything. He was in regular work as a farm labourer.

On Saturday evening he came home and said ”good-bye” to her and the baby and said ”I am going to do away with myself”. She exclaimed ”Oh, pray, Don’t !” Her husband then left the house. He had had some drink. She went round to his mother’s house and asked the boys to go and look for him. They, however, thought nothing of it, as he had said the same thing many times before. They did not go and search for him. She had been married about eighteen months. There was no insanity in the deceased’s family so far as she knew. At 9 p.m. P.C. Gray came and told her that her husband had been found dead on the line near the signal box.

Alfred Cornhill, of Wormley, a nursery hand, and brother of the deceased, said the latter came to them on Saturday and said ”good-bye” but didn’t say where he was going. Once before, about two months ago, he said the same thing, but witness did not take any notice of it. Deceased, had been strange in the mind for some time; but he was in regular work and witness knew of no trouble. When the deceased left he went down the road towards Broxbourne and he saw no more of him. He thought the deceased had had a little to drink, and when he said it before he had also had a lot of drink.

Joseph Haines, a railway guard, stated that he noticed the body on the line near the starting signal at 7.37 p.m. and reported it to the man at the Wormley signal-box as the train passed on its journey to London.

P.C. Gray stated that he found the body lying on the line at 8.20. Part of deceased’s head lay in the four-foot way, and the brains ten yards away. With assistance he removed the body to the Globe Hotel. Deceased had no business on the line, and there was no footpath there.

Dr William Hoskins, of Broxbourne, described the injuries, and said there was no footpath where the body was found, and the level crossing was 300 yards away.

The Jury returned a verdict that deceased was run over by a train, but there was no evidence to show how or why he got on the line.