History
Newspaper Extract
Accidental Death of Robert Turner
December, 1843An inquest was recently taken before Mr. T. Badger, coroner, and a highly respectable jury, at the Gate Inn, Handsworth Woodhouse, near Rotherham, on view of the body of Robert Turner, of Sheffield, aged 35, by trade a spring-knife cutler, whose body had been discovered on Sunday afternoon last at the river Rother.
It appeared from the evidence of William Bellamy, Matthew Gregory, Simeon Gee, and others, that Turner had embraced the religion of the Mormonites, or Latter-day Saints, and after preaching at Handsworth Woodhouse on Sunday, the 19th of November, he gave out that if any person felt thoroughly convinced of the truth of the religious principles which he professed and preached, and would attend early on the following morning, he would baptise them in the river Rother.
Accordingly, very early on the following morning, several persons met Turner, their preacher, in a meadow called "Fairy Meadow," adjoining the river above Woodhouse Mill, and the party, after praying and singing, and being addressed by one of their preachers from Sheffield, as to the absolute necessity of their being born of water and of the spirit, or else they could not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, several of their disciples at once proceeded to strip off all their clothes, and Turner plunged into the river, which was deep, and considerably swollen by the late rains, followed by one William Bellamy, a collier, whom he baptised in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He got out safe, and then one Matthew Gregory went in, and the priest, after plunging him over head, to use the man's own words, and nearly "slockening" him, he, with great difficulty, half-drowned, much starved, and frightened, scrambled out of the river and saved his life, but Turner, on leaving hold of Gregory, unfortunately slipped forward into the deep water, and the current running strong, he was carried away into the middle of the river, and soon sunk to rise no more. Exertions were made to save the man without effect.
Daily efforts have since been made to find the body, and on Sunday afternoon last it was discovered standing upright in the river, with the head partly out of the water, and about 25 yards only from the place where he had drowned.
The coroner and jury, after making strict inquiry into all the circumstances of the case, but strongly condemning the rash and inconsiderate conduct of the parties in plunging into the river, where it is both deep and dangerous, and strongly recommending the survivors not again to run such risks, returned a verdict of "Accidental Death."