Missing Burial for Someone Who Comitted Suicide 1894

[BlueSavannah]

Hello All,

It's been a while since I posted and hope it's ok to return.

I am looking at my husband's family tree in more depth and his grandmother told me that her own grandmother had said one of her sister's had committed suicide after being raped. Really intrigued to find out if this was true, I looked at the sisters her grandmother had and one indeed did tragically commit suicide.

The lady is Ellen Phipps and she died on the 1st July 1894 at her home in Longdon, Worcestershire. She was 23 years old and a domestic general servant. She died of taking carbolic acid whilst of unsound mind. Certificate states an inquest was held 3rd July and the death was registered 7th July.

I've been unable to locate a burial for Ellen though i'd assumed she would have been buried in the local church, maybe in her mother's grave who had died in 1879. So I was wondering whether burials for people who had comitted suicide in the late 1800s were often not recorded in the parish registers as it was still a criminal offence?

I had also hoped there might have been a newspaper article with some details of the inquest but I have not been able to locate anything there either, but that might be my terrible attempts on the awful Find My Past search engine for newspapers.

[kiterunner]

Many people were buried in municipal cemeteries by then so there is no reason to assume she was buried in a churchyard. If someone was buried in the churchyard they would not leave it out of the parish register, but it could have been ruled that she had to be buried in "unconsecrated" ground, not because suicide was a criminal offence, but because it was against the rules of the church.

[BlueSavannah]

I think it's because her father who died in 1924 was also buried at the church but I agree that is a possibility that she is in a municipal cemetery. I think the nearest one is in Upton upon Severn but will do further research in to the cemeteries that were nearest to Longdon.

[Olde Crone]

Another possibility is that she was cremated. A lot would depend on how her next of kin (and the vicar of course) felt about suicide. Poor woman.

OC

[BlueSavannah]

I hadn't thought of cremation. It's a very sad story, I feel for poor Ellen.