The Borough Coroner held an inquest at; the Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, on Tuesday; on the body of a man named Alfred Darby, formerly of Lewes. On the 8th instant deceased was working with several other men at the residence of Mr Burnand, Butler’s Green, Cuckfield.

He and a youth named Elliott, 14 years old, were cleaning the paint off a door, and when the work got beyond their reach Elliott had fetched a form from the servants' hall, upon which they stood. The seat of the form projected at each end considerably beyond its supports.

Elliott got down from one end to sharpen his knife, after telling the deceased he was going to do so. Directly he got down the form tipped up With the weight of deceased, who fell astride on it. The fall seemed to give him great pain, and he had to leave off work. He continued to become worse, and was eventually taken to Hayward’s Heath station and brought to Brighton, where he was admitted to the hospital.

He was then suffering great pain in the bladder, and subsequently inflammation ensued, and the adjacent organs became extensively diseased. The poor fellow lingered till Monday last, when he died after much suffering. The heart and the kidneys were both diseased and it was undoubted that the injury he received in the fall on to the form, acting on an impaired constitution, had produced his death. A verdict of 'accidental death’ was returned.

The Sussex Advertiser, 28 February 1866

Illustration: Alberta Department of Public Health Posters. Wikimedia public domain image.

Contributed by Malcolm Davison.