COMPANY PROMOTER COMMITS SUICIDE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 450, 4 September 1928, Page 13

COMPANY PROMOTER COMMITS SUICIDE

FOUND DEAD IN BED CAS TUBE IN FELT HAT A verdict of suicide by gas poisoning was returned by the coroner, Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., this afternoon in the case of Percy Nicholl Kingswell, company promoter, who was found dead at his residence, 5 Fern Avenue, Golf Road, Epsom, this morning. Ellen Edith Stacpoole, a neice by marriage, said deceased was 57 years old. He was married. He was depressed when he went to bed last evening, but was not ill. This morning kg she was going along the passage outside his room, she picked up a letter addresed to his wife. It stated that he intended to commit suicide. Being too frightened to open the door she rang up Hr. Aubin, who found the deceased dead in bed. The doctor said the room was full of gas and there was a pipe leading from the gas jet to the bed. Kingswell had made a hole in the crown of a felt hat through which he had put the tube. The deceased’s neice added that she had heard him say he was tired of life and his financial position was very bad. The late Mr. Kingswell has always been closely associated with mines and mining. He was formerly managing director of the New River Dredging Company and of the "Waihi-Paeroa fold Extraction Company. At various times he has been associated with mining and dredging at Clutha (Otago), Waihi and Thames.