I did the basic research for this blog series a couple of years ago. Then, as usual, flitted along to the next thing that caught my interest. Now I'm trying to flesh the cases out and present to you my justification for not being a fan of walking along the canal on dark and lonely nights...
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The Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian of April 1st 1871 reported:
SWANSEA. DEATH FROM DROWNING. An inquest was held on Monday at the Burrows Inn, Port Tennant, before Mr. Edward Strick, coroner, to inquire into the circumstances connected with the death of a little boy named Thomas Samuel Hopkins, aged 4 years and 6 months, son of William Hopkins, boiler-maker. The mother of the deceased deposed seeing him go out of the house about 12 o'clock on Sunday; and a man named Robert Matthew gave evidence to the effect that he found the child in the canal dead. The jury returned an open verdict of "Found drowned," believing that the child must have fallen into the water accidentally, as he left his father's house only a quarter of an hour before he was found.
The Cardiff Times of the same day reported:
DEATH FROM DROWNING.A melancholy case of drowning occurred at Port Tennant, near Swansea, on Sunday last, whereby a little boy named Thomas William Hopkins, boiler-maker, men win his death. The deceased was noticed by his mother to run out of the house about 12 o'clock on the day in question, and in less than quarter of a hour he was found, in the canal quite dead, by a man named Robert Matthew. An inquest was held on the body on the following day at the Burrows Inn, Port Tennant, before Mr. Edward Strick, Coroner, when an open verdict was returned, there being no evidence to show how the little fellow got into the water.
Thomas Samuel Hopkins was born in the fourth quarter of 1866 to William Hopkins and x Samuel. I did find a family I initially thought was a match living in Danygraig Terrace on 1871 census, but their Thomas was still alive on the 1881 census, working as a copperman with his father and brother which rather rules them out.
The Thomas of the newspaper reports was buried in Llansamlet on March 30th 1871.
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