July 1847, an inquest is held at the Slip Inn in Milnrow on the body of Benjamin Taylor, who also went by the alias of Scott, he was 77 years of age.
It seems Benjamin enjoyed a drink as the Manchester Times reported that he had been drinking to excess for several weeks.
On the evening of Tuesday 27th July 1847 he was drinking at the Slip Inn, just as he lifted a gill to his mouth the take a mouthful of ale, he fell backwards and died suddenly.
The verdict reached by the inquest jury was one of; "Died by the Visitation of God", or "ex visitacone dei" in Latin.
Whilst we may smirk at such a verdict nowadays, 160 years ago the medical profession would use such a term to describe a death for which no discernible reason could be found, we today would probably use the term natural causes.
In 1837 it became compulsory to register all births, marriages and deaths, the coroners up and down the country were told that in order to bring some kind of commonality to the record returns for the Registrar General, terms such as Visitation of God should be avoided, there was a slow response from the country and it would take many more years before the term stopped being used, it is still possible to find death certificates using this as a cause of death up to about 1900.
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