South Yorkshire Times, January 25, 1958

83-Years-Old Struck By Taxi
‘Accident’ Verdict on Conisbrough Man

Every night S3-years old Charles Henry Wood went to the Castle Working Men’s Club, Conisbrough to see his friends. But on Monday January 13th, as he was on his way to the club he was struck by a taxi on his way and was taken to Doncaster Royal Infirmary. He died there the next day.

And at the Doncaster inquest last Friday on Wood, a retired plumber’s labourer, of Park Road, Conisbrough, the jury returned a verdict of “Accidental Death”.

His sister, Edith Rose, said that her brother went to the club every night “just as a habit”. She said he was deaf and could only hear her if she shouted. He was blind in one eye and his eyesight in the other was poor — “But he could see across the road all right” she added. “He was a quick walker. Everybody said he always seemed to be in a hurry”.

P.C. Wilfred Sellick told the coroner that there was no footpath on the side of the road where Wood had been walking.

The taxi driver, Ernest Edward Whitehead, of Low Road, Conisbrough, said he was driving about 20 m.p.h. down Park Road using his sidelights and spotlight. “I didn’t see Wood until he was right in my lights when I was a matter of one or two yards away” he said Whitehead added “The old man was conscious when I got to hill: He kept saying ‘Will you give a hand up’. He complained or a pain in his stomach.

“The doctor had to get vexed with him when he arrived because the old man would insist on wanting to stand up”

Dr. Henry Lederer, Pathologist said the death was due to shock due to the fractures across his ribs and dorsal vertebrae.