Kentish Gazette, 10 January 1854.

A coroner's inquest was held Friday at the "Castle Tavern," before, C. J. Carttar, Esq., coroner, to inquire into the circumstances attending the death of John Hayes, aged 40, in the employ of Mesers. Kirk and Parry; and a youth named James Elias Jarratt, about 14 years of age, who were drowned by the upsetting of a boat on the Thames, near the North Woolwich Pier.

From the evidence of three of the men who were in the boat with the deceased. it appeared that seven men and the lad Jarratt got into the boat, belonging to the barge, to disembark on the Essex side of the river, and were hastening towards the shore, when one of the witnesses fell down on the side of the boat and upset it, and the whole eight persons were immersed in the river, and Hayes and Jarratt were unfortunately drowned.

Verdict:— Accidental Death.

From the Kentish Gazette, 23 May 1865.

THE MYSTERIOUS DROWNING OF A FEMALE AT WOOLWICH.

On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. C. J. Carttar, coroner for West Kent, resumed an enquiry at the "Castle Tavern," Woolwich, into the circumstances attending the death of Charlotte Emily Bruce, aged twenty-four, of 4, Ann-terrace, Poulton-square, Chelsea, who was drowned in the Thames off Blackwall, on the 26th April last, in a most mysterious manner, which appeared to implicate a waterman named Richard Nolan, for whom Mr. C. Young, solicitor, of Stepney, attended to watch the proceedings.

At the former examination the evidence proved that on the 26th of April the deceased, with a young woman named Belmore, went from London to Blackwall by train, and on Blackwall Pier met with Nolan and a young man named Lewis Watson, who is a clerk at Messrs Green’s dockyard. The party proceeded down the river in Nolan’s boat to Charlton Pier, where they landed, and partook of refreshments at the "United Service Tavern." They left Charlton at half-past nine, p.m. and rowed back to Blackwall, where Watson and the young woman Belmore landed, but Nolan, again pushed off; and about twenty minutes after Nolan returned without the deceased, saying that he could not tell how the deceased got out of the boat. The evidence proved that all the parties had been freely drinking; and a gold watch and guard, and locket and chain, a silver watch, and other property was found on the body of the deceased when picked up several days after the occurrence at Charlton Pier.

The additional witnesses now examined were James Coulton and Thomas Wright, watchmen employed at the East India Docks, but their evidence merely tended to prove that the deceased and another female came to the roundhouse inside the dock gate, and asked what time the London, one of Messrs. Green’s ships, was expected to arrive in the river from Australia. The deceased wished them to have something to drink, but they refused, and she then left sixpence upon the table.

Inspector Good, of the Thames Police, was re-examined, and, in reply to the coroner, said that after he saw the deceased and Nolan rowing about in the boat he watched them, and afterwards saw that the female was missing. He heard no splash in the water, which he must have done had she jumped out of the boat.

The Coroner:- But as the boat was so near the shore she might have fallen on the mud, and then you would not have heard a splash.

Inspector Good replied that the boat was rowing about in deep water. It was his opinion that in some way the female toppled out of the boat head foremost and went down in that manner.

Richard Nolan, waterman, of 35, St. Leonard's Road, Bromley, near Bow, was again examined, and persisted in his former statement that he could not tell how deceased got out of the boat. He took no improper liberties with her, and the last he saw of her was when she was sitting in the stern of the boat.

The Coroner observed this was a most extraordinary and unsatisfactory case. One could scarcely credit — and he did not think it was credited by the public — that this woman could have fallen from the boat into the water without Nolan being aware of it. Whatever difficulty, doubt, or stigma might arise from the case it would entirely rest upon Nolan, who was sober enough to answer the police, and to row to the pier after the woman was lost, and therefore could not have been so intoxicated as to be oblivious to all that took place. He was much afraid that Nolan, in order to screen himself, was keeping something back which might have thrown a light upon the matter. He did not scruple to say that, after the two other persons had landed from the boat at Blackwall, there must have been some motive for Nolan and the deceased again drifting off with the boat, and the supposition was that Nolan might have taken improper liberties with the deceased, which, notwithstanding that she had been drinking with him, she resisted, and was thus tumble from the boat. He could only repeat his previous opinion, that, considering the want of direct evidence, the jury would do well to return an open verdict.

The jury then returned a verdict of "Found drowned," but how, or by what means, there was no evidence to show.