Verdict: Accidental Death, and the Deodand

William Doyle, coal miner, was killed after being run over by a cart in 1838.  I had always hoped to find either an article about this accident or, better yet, an obituary giving family information.  Neither have come to light but today I found the notice below telling of the inquest into his death and the verdict.  William died on September 1; the inquest was on September 3.

This brief notice was published on Friday, September 7, 1838, in the Newcastle Weekly Courant, on page 4, column 2. 

   On the 3d instant, an inquest was held before the
same coroner, at Plessey Checks, on view of the body of
William Doyle, who came to his death by injuries re-
ceived from a cart passing over him, near the same place.
Verdict---accidental death.  Deodand on the cart 5s.

Notes and Comments

• What I'd most like to know is whether William was at work in a coal mine at the time the cart passed over him or above-ground in a street, walkway, or pathway.  Did he stumble and fall in front of a cart that had no means of stopping before running over him, or was he behind the cart and the driver didn't realize it?  Or . . . ?   I doubt my questions will ever be answered, but one does wonder.
• Plessey Checks seems to have been a location within or near Bedlington, Northumberland, and not a government office.
• The coroner was not named in the newspaper in any of the previous cases listed.  Several of those announcements repeat their cases were "held before the same coroner." 
• Might there have been a record of this inquest beyond the final verdict and might it still be available somewhere, in some court in Northumberland?

Deodand was a new word to me.  The word "deodand" comes from the Latin Deodandum meaning "to be given to God."  (There are a multitude of online sources for this definition, all of which say basically the same thing.)  In England, before 1846, if an animal or object caused the death of a person, it was to be forfeited to the crown and put to pious uses.  Evidently, in 1838 in Northumberland, instead of giving the cart to the crown, a value for the cart was decided upon and that was given to the crown.  

It was challenging to determine the value of a shilling in 1838, as in what it would buy.  The closest I came was to learn that a shilling was about a day's wages for a laboring man.

Perhaps the law was unable to vary at that time but knowing that William Doyle's death left his wife a pregnant widow with five children between the ages of 12 and 2, wouldn't it have been great if those 5s could have gone to her?

William and his wife Martha (Reay) Doyle are my third great-grandparents.

—Nancy.

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