Death certificate handwriting (pic)

[Lemond1fficult]

Hi everyone

I got the death certificate for my g-g-g-grandfather from 1857 and can't read the cause of death, as I don't think it's a familiar condition in today's parlance.

Would love a hand reading it, if anyone's able?

I can't find any Edward Owen in the list of people who died in the cwmtillery explosion

narp.oed.com/oed2/00165542;jsessionid=9F18B7836FE15F9B341DF51A5BB85D46
Again here (use Ctrl F to find).

He might have been diagnosed four months prior to death.

www.neonatology.org/classics/old.terms.html
Again, use Ctrl F to find.

I wondered about cirrhosis but they would surely spell it right. I think definitely scirrhous, ie he had a malignant tumour.

I'm thinking pernicious- like pernicious anaemia type pernicious?

I changed my mind and agree with scirrhous. Double "r" is clear.

Scirrhous 4 months certified

It's not an s though because it's different to the s in seventh

And the two rrs are different and the handwriting is normally very even

Definitely scirrhous to me. That's what I read first, not knowing if it was a word or not.

Yes, they would have spelled cirrhosis right, and also scirrhous was pronounced with a hard C ('skir-us') so a mistake would have been a slim to none chance.

This might help, OP. It's all the causes of death on certificates issued at a hospital in Leeds. Probably not many mining-related deaths, but it is a good list of other possible causes.

Only 12 out of 97,112 certificates had the cause of death as just fever, but there are more fever with something else, e.g. fever on the brain. So maybe yours is fever with a second word that has been run together with it?

If he was a victim of a mining disaster here is a list of names with the area and dates etc.

www.welshcoalmines.co.uk/DisastersList.htm

Blue I read that list too. I wondered if the 13 listed were those whose bodies were recovered at the time?

@wowfudge I wondered that too. I think it might even say Cwmtillery underneath the date of death?

OP, the Big Pit museum is now at or very near the Cwmtillery site I think. Maybe they would have more info about the explosion.

Blue It is an S. It looks different to the s in seventh because it’s upper-case and the s in seventh is lower-case.

wow that's true because it says he died 27 may 2957 abertillery

And that's the exact date and the disaster is near abertillery

So I reckon it is actually something to do with that

That a supposed to say 1857

Life in the collieries was awful. I'm from a long line of Welsh coal miners on my maternal side. My mum told me stories of pit collapses and the terror of hearing that siren or whistle go off. All the women would run to the pit to see if their dads, husbands, brothers and sons had made it out. The horror. Many of my relatives died in the dark or lost limbs.

Looks like it says

Coal Miner

Cirrhosis-
4 months Certified

Interesting...

Terrible what the coal miners suffered, reading some of the list of deaths, some of them were 11 years old. One of them on 23rd dec looked like the dad and his 2 sons were killed.

I think he might have died in the disaster and been found 2 days later, so not in the list or not an official victim

I know it's awful long so many so young

Thanks for looking. Feverous makes sense, but what about the 'h' in the middle?

Yes, he was a miner justasking

Thanks justasking - it starts a bit late for this chap, but I didn't know this existed, so could be useful for the many, many other miners I have to research

I think it looks like 'Scirrhour' which is used ( at least historically) to describe a tumour or carcinoma, according to examples from Google!