Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 2 (of 3): Containing Lives of the Most Celebrated Pugilists; Full Reports of Their Battles from Contemporary Newspapers, With Authentic Portraits, Personal Anecdotes, and Sketches of the Principal Patrons of the Prize Ring, Forming a Complete History of the Ring from Fig and Broughton, 1719-1740, to the Last Championship Battle Between King and Heenan, in December 1863Miles, Henry Downes
History
Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 2 (of 3): Containing Lives of the Most Celebrated Pugilists; Full Reports of Their Battles from Contemporary Newspapers, With Authentic Portraits, Personal Anecdotes, and Sketches of the Principal Patrons of the Prize Ring, Forming a Complete History of the Ring from Fig and Broughton, 1719-1740, to the Last Championship Battle Between King and Heenan, in December 1863
Miles, Henry Downes
Boxing
Chancy Barber, of Finchley, bricklayer, said, Before eleven o’clock last
night I was in bed at home, when the alarm came for a light; it was then
starlight. I got up and went along the road to where the deceased
persons were; they were put into their own chaise-cart, and were both
dead. They were brought to this house. A medical gentleman, assistant to
Mr. Hammond, was at the door nearly as soon as the bodies arrived, and
examined them. They exhibited no symptoms of life after I saw them.
There was a wagon standing by the chaise, and a cart behind the wagon,
when I got up. I examined the spot where the accident took place this
morning. The wheels of the chaise had been on the footpath; the chaise
had nearly gone the whole width on the footpath where it was overturned.
The wagon was going towards town. The chaise was going the same way; the
chaise was on the near side; the wagon was nearest to the near side of
the road. The track of the wagon appeared to have proceeded in a direct
line, and there was no room for a chaise to have passed on the near side
without going on the footpath. There was more than plenty of room for
one or two carriages to have passed on the off side without injury. I
think the wagoner could not be in any manner to blame, as he appeared to
me to have been unconscious of the chaise being there.
James Ball, of Whetstone, servant to Mr. Sutton, said, I was coming
towards Whetstone, and met the wagon and chaise. I saw the wheel of the
chaise on the footpath, immediately before it overturned towards the
wagon. I saw the men fall out. I think the wagon wheel did not go over
them, but that the drag-cart did: the drag-cart was loaded. Hickman was
run over by the wheel of the drag-cart; Rowe’s head was struck against
the cart wheel. The wagoner was not to blame: he was driving in a
regular and steady manner. Verdict—Accidental Death.
Between the hours of eleven and twelve on Thursday, December 19, 1822, a
vast concourse of people assembled in Aldersgate Street and Jewin Street
to witness the funeral of Hickman. At twelve o’clock the funeral
procession commenced from the Adam and Eve, in Jewin Street, the house
of Hickman, previous to which the interior exhibited a most melancholy
scene. The pall was supported by Josh. Hudson and Shelton, Tom Belcher
and Harmer, and Randall and Turner. The father of the Gas, his brother,
and some other relatives were the principal mourners. The procession was
filled up by Mr. Warlters, Tom Owen, Scroggins, Parish, Oliver, Jem
Burn, Purcell, Powell, Bill Davies, Baxter, and Pierce Egan. The plate
on the coffin stated Hickman to be in his twenty-seventh year. He was
buried in the churchyard in Little Britain. On the ground were Bittoon,
Bill Eales, Jack Carter, George Head, etc., who were not in time to join
the procession. The crowd in the streets was immense.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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