Dinah Towle

A TRAGIC DEATH IN LEGBOURNE

THIS REPORT APPEARED IN THE LOUTH AND NORTH LINCOLNSHIRE ADVERTISER ON

JUNE 17th 1871

On Tuesday last, about half past twelve o’clock, as a young woman named Dinah Towle, wife of Robinson Towle, a carpenter residing at Little Cawthorpe was taking her husband’s dinner, he being employed on the Kenwick Estate, a violent thunderstorm took place, during which she was struck by lightning while in the middle of a field on the carriageway from Legbourne to Kenwick and was killed on the spot. A labourer who was in the field noticed the deceased on the road, and shortly afterwards saw her lying on the ground. Suspecting the nature of the accident, he at once raised the alarm, and one of the first to arrive on the spot was the deceased’s husband, but she was then quite dead. The body was removed and an inquest held in the evening at the Royal Oak Inn, Little Cawthorpe by Thos Sharpley Esq. M.D. Coroner. From the evidence of F.S. Tate Esq. Surgeon, who had made an examination of the body it appeared that he saw the deceased shortly after she fell. He found the dress round her neck singed, the chemise partially burnt, as also one of her stockings. One of the boots which were heavily nailed, was torn open; and there were marks of burning on the chest, abdomen, right thigh and left leg, her garter being severed in two. Death had no doubt been caused by a flash of lightning which had struck her. The jury returned a verdict in accordance with the above facts. The coroner remarked that this was the first inquest to be held during the thirteen years he had held his office. Deceased leaves four motherless children to deplore her loss.

. THE ADVERTISER  WAS THE LOCAL NEWSPAPER BETWEEN 1859 AND 1920.

Dinah, aged 31years, was buried in Little Cawthorpe on 22ND June but the location of her grave is not known – it is unlikely to have had a permanent marker. Nor do we know the fate of the children – perhaps the wider family was able to take them on or they could have been taken into the workhouse in Louth – four children, probably all under the age of ten, would have been difficult for a working father to cope with. Much of the workhouse still stands as part of Louth County Hospital.