Tragedy strikes twice - two sudden deaths in Bishop's Stortford

 

On Thursday 22 March 1900 there were two very sudden deaths in Bishop’s Stortford.  At 3.30 in the afternoon, Supt Foster was on duty in the market when he was told that a man had been taken ill in Potter Street.  When he arrived there he found P.S. Clarke attending to a man called Pell, a hawker from Warboys in Huntingdonshire.  Doctor Hartley was called and the man was taken to the police station.

No sooner than this was done, the police were called to the Falcon Hotel.  Here, a commercial traveller called Laws, from Suffolk, had died.  Mr Laws had arrived at the hotel at 11:00 that morning, then travelled to Furneux Pelham.  On his return at 3.30 he asked for some whisky.  When the landlord of the Falcon, Mr Reeve, returned to give him his whisky, Mr Laws was kneeling in front of the fireplace, vomiting blood.  The landlord lifted him up but he died instantly.  Dr Hartley attended and, on seeing the man was dead returned to Pell and performed a tracheotomy, but Pell also died.  Both men were removed to the mortuary to await inquests.