Sudden Death - The Definitive Answer !

[DavidWW]

"Retour" is the newsletter of the Scottish Records Association, published several times per year. It normally has at least a couple of items of interest to genealogists and family historians.

In the current issue, for example, there is a short note on the demise of tailzies, plus the regular column by Ms R.K.Vyst which deals with sudden death .........

With the very kind permission of Ms R.K.Vyst, the complete article (sans interesting wee picture) is reproduced here.

Please note that this material is strictly copyright of the Scottish Records Association and Retour.

For permission to reproduce elsewhere, contact should be made with SRA at Robin.Urquhart@scan.org.uk.

This article may eventually appear on the SRA website at www.scottishrecordsassociation.org

It should be noted that since publication there has been a slight correction regarding procurator fiscal records in Shetland (a note on this will appear in the next issue of Retour in the autumn).


Suspicious Circumstances

R K Vyst,

Scotia's Archival Agony Aunt,
investigates a case of sudden death,
and explains what records survive for such cases in Scotland

© Scottish Records Association July 2005

Q. Inspired by the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? programmes, I am investigating a family mystery concerning my great uncle Ebenezer, who was a vintner in Caldercruix. The story goes that, while supervising the unloading of a consignment of tonic wine at his shop in 1935, he apparently slipped and fell through the manhole into the cellar of his shop and died shortly afterwards in a hospital in Coatbridge. According to family tradition, his fall was caused by a push from a rival wine merchant, who managed to thwart the resulting police investigation. First of all, where can I get the results of the coroner's inquest?

Ms Vyst's reply: I'm afraid you've been watching too many episodes of Quincy. The Scottish equivalents of coroners' inquests are fatal accident enquiries (FAIs). Since 1895 FAIs have been held into fatal accidents in the workplace and cases of sudden death where public interest was involved, but not into deaths by suicide. The original Fatal Accidents Inquiry (Scotland) Act 1895 provided for public inquiries by sheriff and jury, upon petition by the procurator fiscal, into fatal accidents occurring in industrial employment or occupations. This was amended in 1906 to include provisions for inquiries into any case of sudden or suspicious death in which it appeared to the Lord Advocate that an inquiry should be held. Ebenezer’s death may have been subject to an inquiry, but equally, if the investigating procurator fiscal was satisfied that there were no suspicious circumstances, the matter would not have been taken further. FAI records are held in the National Archives of Scotland (NAS). They often consist only of the verdict reached, and for some years are wanting altogether. Caldercruix falls within the jurisdiction of Airdrie Sheriff Court for which FAI records do survive for the 1930s. More information as to what FAI records survive for other sheriff courts can be found on the NAS online public catalogue at www.nas.gov.uk .

Question. Surely there will be something in police records then?

Reply. Alas, almost certainly not. The surviving records of the county, burgh and regional constabularies, which preceded the present day police forces, have been deposited in local archives or retained by the present day forces. For example, the forces which operated in the Coatbridge and Caldercruix areas (the burgh constabulary of Coatbridge and the Lanark County Constabulary) were absorbed into Strathclyde Police in 1975 and most of the surviving records are with Glasgow City Archives. The records of police forces deposited in local archives sometimes include occurrence books kept by local police stations, but rarely include case files or records of individual investigations.

Question. What if the police investigation resulted in a prosecution? Wouldn't there be records with the local prosecutor, the District Attorney?

Reply. Enough Americanisms already! In Scotland the investigating official is the Procurator Fiscal, who answers to the Crown Office in Edinburgh. Fiscal records are not generally preserved, except for those of the Banff Procurator Fiscal, whose records are deposited in the NAS as a sample. They are closed for 75 years. The same is true of the registers of cases kept by the Crown Office, also in NAS, which may supply very brief details of cases at certain dates. They include procedure and consultation books (AD9-10), and registers of sudden deaths and FAIs (AD12). Unfortunately there are gaps in the records, for example, of sudden deaths in the 1930s. If criminal proceedings arose from an investigation or FAI, try looking in the High Court or Sheriff Court records in NAS. Civil actions arising from compensation claims, or workmen’s compensation (WCA) claims, were routinely heard in the Sheriff Court, and occasionally reached the Court of Session. Check the NAS online. It might be worth trying the published law reports, which, in turn, might lead to case papers in the NAS.

Question. The death certificate states that he died in the Alexander Hospital, Coatbridge a few days after the accident. Will hospital records tell me any more than I can get from the death certificate?

Reply. In the words of Scotland's greatest living philosopher: 'maybes aye, maybes no'. The quality and quantity of surviving records for hospitals depends on various factors, but, in this case, you may be in luck, as the records of the Alexander Hospital contain registers of admissions and accident cases, and ward journals and they are held by the Greater Glasgow NHS Archive.

Question. How do I find out which local newspapers in Coatbridge and the Caldercruix area were published at the time and might carry reports of the incident, obituaries or death notices?

Reply. Until recently, the best starting point for this was compiled by a distinguished member of the Scottish Records Association, Joan P S Ferguson, whose Directory of Scottish Newspapers (1984) is widely available in reference libraries in Scotland. Her work has been updated NEWSPLAN: Report of the Newsplan Project in Scotland, published by the British Library in 1994. Both of these publications list the newspapers which were published in each town and county at that time, and which libraries have copies on paper or microfilm.


R K Vyst is, in reality, the amalgam of several Scottish archivists and researchers, and cannot enter into specific correspondence. Contributions, in the form of queries and suggested answers are warmly welcomed. In writing the above article, Ms Vyst received invaluable help from Alastair Durie (University of Stirling), Jenny McDermott (Lothian Health Services Archive), John Simmons and Tristram Clarke (National Archives of Scotland).

[CatrionaL]

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