Hand-book for coroners : containing a digest of all the laws in the thirty-eight states of the union together with a historical resumé, from the earliest period to the present time. A guide to the physician in post-mortem examinations and valuable miscellaneous matter never before collated / By John G. Lee.

  • Lee, John G. (John Grigg), 1857-1891.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hand-book for coroners : containing a digest of all the laws in the thirty-eight states of the union together with a historical resumé, from the earliest period to the present time. A guide to the physician in post-mortem examinations and valuable miscellaneous matter never before collated / By John G. Lee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    occurring upon the high seas;—but in cases of death, occurring upon shipboard, a river or estuary, the land coroner has juris- diction. Or, again, the coroner of the verge, or limit of the sover- eign's court; who is always the Lord-High-Steward of the Queen's household for the time being, and who has jurisdiction jointly with the county coroner over a certain territory around tbe residence of the sovereign, anciently allowed to have been about twelve miles; except in cases of murder or manslaughter done within the royal palace, when he has exclusive jurisdiction. Occasionally the sov- ereign granted also, by charter, to the lords of franchises, the rigbt to nominate coroners. And in confirmation of this ancient right we find that, in the account of the business transacted at the East Derbyshire Quarter Sessions, in 1856, mention, is made of the re- ceipt of a letter from the solicitors of a certain Henry Marwood Greaves, Esq.. appointing Mr. Francis Grey Bennett, solicitor of Glossop, to be coroner for the Hundred of High Peak, vic^j Mr. Thomas Mander, resigned. Mr. Greaves claimed the right by virtue of the possession of an ancient Aoni derived from the Foxlowe family. According to Blount, in* his Fragamenta Antiquitatis, we :find that one Walter Achard, or Agard, claimed to hold by in- heritance the office of Escheator or Coroner, through the whole honour of Tetbury Co., Stafford, and the Bailiwick of Leyke, as title to which office he could produce no evidences, charter or other writing, but only a white hunter's horn, decorated in the middle and at each end with silver gilt, to which also was affixed 2, girdle of fine black silk, adorned with certain buckles of silver, in the midst of which were placed the arms of either John of Gaunt, or of his son Henry IV. This horn^ which had been pre- viously in the possession of the family of Ferrers, of Tamworth whose daughter one of the Agards married, was the one by virtue of which Mr. Greaves claimed the right to appoint a coroner, having passed by purchase and marriage through various families, until finally it came into the possession of that gentlenaan. This curious custom, which is still extant, was one of the various methods of transferring inheritances in use amongst our forefathers. Ingulphus, one of the historians of the middle ages, particularly specifies the horn. At first, says he, speaking of the conqueror's time, many estates were transferred by bare word of mouth, without any writ- ing or charter—only by the lord's sword, or helmet, or /lorw, or cup; and many tenements by a spur, a scraper, a bow, and some by an arrow.