The health and safety at work industry of today would have, by the look of things, been very busy in the late eighteenth century.

The Intelligencer on 30th June 1761 told the story of the demise of a builder and judging by the tone of the writing they were not fettered then by the false sincerity of today's newspapers. If someone was stupid, they said so!

'A certain eminent chimney Doctor, who is also a bricklayer in this Town, after finishing the house last week... rightly judging that his Brains lay in his Heels, took it into his head to place his Heels uppermost on the Top of the chimney, which unfortunately departing from their perpendicular down came the whole carcase. This Accident had like to have demolish'd the best and worst philosophical chimney Doctor in this County.'

 A 41-year old man was drowned in two feet of water after he had squeezed his head through an 18 inch water grate to retrieve an object he had inadvertently dropp'd there.

Even intelligent people were not immune from death by stupidity as the Intelligencer reported on 22nd December 1778;

'On Wednesday last as Robert Hardman, a serjeant in the Militia quartered in this Town, was walking thro' a passage under one of the navigation warehouses a pack of wool was carelessly thrown out of a trap door which fell upon him, broke his left leg, and bruised his body so violently that he languished till Thursday evening and then died.'

 Children did not exempt themselves from using unusual exits from this life.

On 11th May 1779 the Intelligencer…'last Saturday evening, betwixt five and six o'clock, as one Joseph Cocker, a boy about twelve years of age, belonging to the Pottery near this town (Burmantofts possibly), was amusing himself on the upright post of the Pottery Windmill, his head was unfortunately caught betwixt the cogs of a wheel, whereby he was instantly crushed to death.'

In December ten years earlier the Intelligencer informed its readership;
'About Nine o'clock on Saturday Evening the Daughter (8 years old) of one John Calverley. A Weaver in Swinegate, was unfortunately drown'd in the piece of water between the Old-Mills and the Water Engine.
She was sent on an errand with a lighted candle in her hand, which, it is imagined, so bewildered her, that instead of going over a small bridge she went into the water.'

 'Honesty is the best policy', says the proverb. On the appropriate date of the 13th February 1781 the Leeds Mercury ran the following story…

'On Monday evening the 5th inst. About Seven o'clock, the following unhappy affair happened near Ferrybridge.
A Gentleman, an officer in the Guards, accompanied by a lady, with whom he had been on a matrimonial expedition to Scotland, stopped at the White Swan in Ferrybridge.
After his departure from the Inn, it was discovered he had left a purse behind him. Jarvis Thompson, the under-tapster, was immediately despatched on horseback with it; he overtook the carriage about a mile from Ferrybridge, and rode up to one of the windows, then called out to the Gentleman, 'YOUR PURSE, YOUR PURSE, SIR'.
The Gentleman fearing a highwayman, let down the window and shot him dead.'

 Those who opted for an early exit were also frowned upon as the Intelligencer reported on the 24th March 1767:

'In the night of Saturday last, William Tempest, a journeyman clothdresser in the lower Head Row in this Town, hang'd himself upon a post used for drying clothes, in a croft adjoining to Lady-Lane, where he was found on Sunday morning; yesterday the Coroner's Inquest sat upon the body (provide your own quip here!), and brought in their verdict, 'felo de se'; in consequence of which, he was the same evening buried in the public highway.'

The last proverb for today…' Every cloud has a silver lining', especially if you are in the funeral business. On the 12th October 1779 Intelligencer customers read;

'Last Saturday, Mrs Mary Batley, a shroud maker, in Kirkgate in this Town, having just finished one for a corpse, said to the person who was with her, 'To save expence, I will now make my own', which she accordingly began, but before she had finished it, was taken ill, and died.' 

 And finally, one who really should have known better:

Leeds Mercury 15th February 1780, 'On Friday Widow Bark, a noted fortune-teller at Beeston, near this Town was found drowned in a small rivulet near that place.'

If you think we have progressed then think again, the incident above regarding the fool who stuck his head in a water grate occurred in the 1990s.

The modern world has refined the means of dying stupidly to a fine art.
More crazy exits can be found on the Darwin Award site…

see the links page