A CELEBRATED CORONER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1037, 30 April 1912, Page 4

A CELEBRATED CORONER.

MR TROUTBECK’S PRIVATE INQUESTS.

The official life of Mr John Troutbeck, the Westminster coruner, who died at the end of February last, spans quite a long period in the development of legal inquiries in the Old Country One is almost astounded, in view of the freedom and independence of the Press to-day, to read of his methods so recently as the nineties. m Mr Troutbeck was not an old man —only fifty-one —and he was first appointed a coroner, for the City and Liberty of Westminster in ISBB. First of all, Mr Troutbeck came into conflict with the medical profession by his employment of what he called a “special pathologist,” a medical witness Who should give evidence entirely on the results of his post-mortem and independent of anything the medical attendant of the deceased person might have to say. He was accused by the Medical Association of actually with-holding from the jury the evidence of the medical attendant, and in one case of severely censuring the medical attendant for absence, when in point of fact he had not been summoned to the inquest. Lord Hals bury said he was not in favour himself ot the Coroner’s practice, but he could not say that grounds had been established for his re mova).

The next outburst was in 1908) when Mr Troutbeck insisted on holding an inquest on a woman who had died after an operation had been performed by Sir Victor Horsley. The case, Sir Victor said, was such, a usual one that there was no necessity for an inquest, but Mr Troutbeck held that operations were clearly to some extent the cause of death, and therefore such cases came under the Coroner’s Act, 1887. Alter a long correspondence, The Times declared the practice intolerable to the whole medical profession. Another of Mr Troulbeck’s idiosyncrasies was the holding of private inquests at which even the Press was not represented. The most famous of these was on the late Duke of Bed lord, who died in 1891, It was given out that the Duke had died a natural death, but a week later it transpired that he had committed suicide and that Mr Troutbeck had held an inquest in private. This, of course, led to a violent discussion, the result of which was to vindicate the right of the Coroner to hold inquests in private. There was the other celebrated case of the gaiety girl, Miss Manton, who died under suspicious circumstances. The inquest was never reported, Mr Troutbeck refusing absolutely to communicate his notes to anyone. In those days, it ought to be explained, reporting was more or less in the hands of cliques of professional reporters, who retailed their reports to the press at large, and cornered the business. Mr Troutbeck himself refused to give any information to accredited representatives of individual papers.

A cultured linguist, Mr Troutbeck often dispensed with the services ot interpreters at his enquiries. He was also a skilled musician, and played the viola in the orchestra at the Coronation last year. He was appointed Coroner by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.