Scared to death?
Click ^ for larger image.
They don't write headlines like this any more: Melancholy Death from the Effects of the late Thunderstorm. Neither do we use words such as se'nnight, which means seven nights ago (a word formed along the same lines of the still popular fortnight). The tragic tale of Miss Ellen Price transcribed below, dates to the days when Brislington boasted at least one boarding school capable of attracting the daughter of one of the 'finest men in Bristol'.
"MELANCHOLY DEATH FROM THE EFFECTS OF THE LATE THUNDERSTORM. - On Monday last, Miss Ellen Price, daughter of Mrs. Mary Price, of the Saracen's Head Inn and Railway Hotel, Temple-gate, expired under the following melancholy circumstances. The deceased, it appears, was a pupil in the Boarding School of the Misses Evans & Matthews, of Brislington, was sitting at her studies in the academy at the time of the terrific lightning and thunder with which our city and its neighbourhood was on Friday se'nnight visited, when she was suddenly seized with so much alarm and fright, that it was deemed necessary to call in the aid of Dr. Fryer, but inflammation of the brain rapidly succeeded, and she continued from that time in a state of stupor, with the exception of once only, when she was understood to observe - "No music to-day," and to ask, "Where was her hair?" After those expressions, however, she evidently rapidly declined, and expired, as above stated, on Monday last, at about half-past one o'clock. Deceased, who was only 13 years of age, was a most beautiful girl. It may not be apart from the subject to state that the bereaved mother, a few months since, lost by sudden death her husband, who was considered to be one of the finest men in Bristol."
Jonathan Rowe (chair of Brislington Conservation and History Society) has provided some background detail - this boarding school run by Miss Mary Evans & Miss Mary Matthews was at Woodland House, Church Parade (now converted to flats), and was 'a school for young ladies' from c.1840 to 1852. The identity of Dr Fryer is a bit of a mystery, but he may have been called in from Brislington House Asylum (it wasn't until 1902 that Brislington had its own resident doctor). There was a boy's boarding school nearby in Brislington at Church Hill House (later the vicarage for the church of St Luke) and another, in the 1840s, at Arno's Court (now Arnos Manor Hotel).
Bristol Times and Mirror - Saturday 19 May 1849, page 5, col 6.
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000981/18490519/044/0005
Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Period: Modern
Find spot: Woodland House, Church Parade, Brislington
Exhibit contributed by Ken Taylor
Text written by Ken Taylor
Photographer: The British Library Board. Derived image by Ken Taylor 2017
Acquisition number: 171126a4