An inquest was held on Thursday, by R. Wilson, Esq., at the Castle Inn, in Castle-street, on the body of Robert Bateman, an old man in his 73rd year, who was well known to all travellers on the Kendal and Windermere Line, as a vendor of newspapers, periodicals, and all kinds of railway literature. He was highly respected by all who knew him, and from his constant and punctual attendance, seemed to be as much identified with the line as any of the railway servants themselves. He had been for a long time in a very ailing state, and at time was in great pain from a distressing ailment with which he was afflicted; and it is conjectured that illness, with its attendant depression of spirits, a depression aggravated by the very scanty earnings of a laborious calling, led him to the rash act which prematurely terminated a life which could not, in all probability, have been prolonged, in the ordinary course of nature, many weeks. The verdict of the jury was “Found drowned.”
We subjoin the evidence:-
Henry Rudd, of Kendal, porter on the Windermere Railway, examined.- The deceased was my father-in-law, and resided with me in the township of Nethergraveship. He was formerly a weaver, but latterly he has been employed selling periodicals to the passengers on the Lancaster and Carlisle and Windermere Railways. He was an old man about 73 years of age. About a quarter-past four o’clock yesterday morning he came into my room and asked me if I would have a light; I had one, and he left the house soon afterwards, as I suppose, to go to the station, and I never saw him again alive. I went to the station about twenty minutes to six, and I expected to find him at the refreshment-room, but he was not there. He had been there in the morning, and had opened the door and locked it again, and left the key in the waiting room, where he was accustomed to leave it, when there was only one key to the room. He had left some silver and copper money, a key, his pocket knife, and pencil, upon a table in th refreshment-room, and I then began to suspect that he had not gone up to Oxenholme, and commenced a search for him about the station; not finding him there, I returned home and went to his bed, thinking he might have returned there, as he had been some time unwell. He was afflicted with gravel, and appeared childish at times and changed, after the Dr. said he would not be able to work again. His spirits were affected, and he was desponding and in a despairing mood. The search was kept up for him all yesterday until evening, and I was told that he was found at four o’clock, drowned in the reservoir at Oxenholme.
James Anderson, of Oxenholme Station, examined.- Robert Bateman was missing all day yesterday, and I inquired for him throughout the day of any one likely to give information. About for o’clock in the afternoon I went to the reservoir at Oxenholme, formed for supplying the tank on the railway with water, and I found the deceased in the reservoir quite dead. He was about the middle of that part of the reservoir between the clue and the field on the Kendal side. He appeared to have been drowned. The body was all under water when I found it. I found his hat under water pressed under a rail by the side of the reservoir. I think this must have been done by the deceased or some other person; it could not have floated there. There was nothing on the side of the reservoir to lead to the supposition that any one had put deceased in the water, nor do I know how he came there. I don’t think any one had been at the reservoir after deceased was drowned until I went. There are no marks of violence about the body that I observed.
Kendal Mercury, 6 November 1852