Express and Advertiser, January 22, 1910
OLD MAN’S SUICIDE AT NELSON.
An old man named James Ratcliffe (74), retired weaver of Halifax road, committed suicide on Wednesday afternoon by hanging himself. For the past six weeks it appears that Ratcliffe had suffered from mental depression, and he had been attended by Dr. Normington. At two o’clock on Wednesday afternoon deceased left home to go to feed his poultry at Causeway Farm. He called at the doctor’s surgery on his way, leaving there at 2-30. Soon after four o’clock a lamplighter named Knight saw deceased hanging from a rope attached to a tree near his pen. He got the assistance of two men, and the body was cut down, life being found to be extinct.
The inquest was held on Thursday afternoon, when a verdict of “Suicide whilst of unsound mind” was returned.
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