Documents relating to the case of Abraham Ashworth

Attempted Murder And Suicide.

Abraham Ashworth, forty years of age, made a desperate attempt to murder his wife and then destroyed himself with a razor.

He was a woolsorter employed by Messrs James Akroyd & Son, and lived at Scott's Row, Back Foundry Street, Halifax. He suffered with asthma and was married with seven children.

He had the impression that he would never recover his health and had often said he would kill himself and asked his wife not to tell anyone about it, and she obeyed.

On Saturday night, after the children had gone upstairs to bed, the deceased and his wife went to their bed in the living room downstairs. In the morning, at about five o'clock, the poor woman was awakened in the most terrible manner and found her husband cutting her in the abdomen. She had strength to get up and her screams of Murder were heard by neighbours, and also by Constable Spencer on duty at the bottom of Northgate Fields.

On entering the house the constable found the woman in front of the fire, her bowels protruding from a wound inflicted by her husband. The husband was cutting away desperately at his throat with a razor. The officer seized him and knocked the razor out of his hand with a lamp which as a result was extinguished.

When another lamp was procured the man was dead. The woman's sister said that her own husband had also committed suicide.

The inquiry on the deceased was held at the Orange Tree Inn, with the innkeeper Thomas Crowther acting as foreman. During the proceedings members of the jury were taken to see the body of the deceased. The house generally showed that the family had been in the depths of poverty