South Yorkshire Times, January 13th, 1933

Thurnscoe Suicide

Out of Work Miner Cuts His Throat

“Not Worried”

“Suicide with insufficient evidence to show the sate of the mind” was the verdict recorded by the Doncaster District coroner (Mr. W. H. Carlile, on Friday at Thurnscoe, at inquiry into the death of Joseph Barstow (65) 4, Wynn View, Thurnscoe, which occurred the preceding Wednesday from a wound in the throat.

The widow, Emma Barstow, who has been an invalid for 28 years, told the coroner that her husband was paid off last August from Hickleton Main with a lot of other men. On Wednesday, about 730pm, her husband and herself were in the kitchen. “He asked if my daughter would be long and I said I would look if she was coming. I was gone less than five minutes and when I came back, he was in the lavatory and I went to see if he was all right.  I could not open the door so I went and called the next-door neighbour but still we could not open it.”  A doctor was sent for.

Questioned as to whether her husband had been depressed through lack of work, Mrs. Barstow said, “He has always said he could do as much work as the young ‘uns.  He has not been particularly depressed.  He had not been ill and never appeared moody or melancholy.  I cannot understand why he has done it.”  Mrs. Barstow added that she at first thought her husband had had a seizure in the lavatory.

A son tried to give evidence and Mrs Barstow ordered him to be quiet.  “He was quite cheerful when I left him,” she said. “He was talking lovely to me.  He was not worried about being out of work.

The coroner then asked the son if he wanted to give evidence.  “My mother has told you the truth,” he replied.

Dr. J. L. McCohn, Thurnscoe, said that when he arrived at the house, the lavatory door could be slightly opened. Barstow was lying with his legs against the door and suffering from a wound in the throat.  This had been inflicted by a large carving knife and considerable force had been used, the wound being to the backbone. The man was dead, the cause being syncope, due to loss of blood following the wound,

The son then told the coroner, “He was a good worker until he was dropped.  During the last six weeks, or two months, he has seemed to have something on his mind, but he would not say.

The coroner said there was no doubt the man had committed suicide, but the evidence did not clearly show the state of his mind.