Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Saturday 13 April 1889
Child Drowned In A Wash Tub At Denaby.
About eight o’clock yesterday morning Ernest Soar, aged one year, son of Eli Soar, miner, 6, Dearne View, Denaby, accidentally drowned in a wash tub.
The child, along with three or four other children, had been playing in house.
Unobserved, he went into a wash kitchen, and leaning over a tub containing about five inches of water, overbalanced and fall in.
When found life was extinct.
Mexborough and Swinton Times April 19, 1889
Child Drowned in a Slop Tub at Denaby
On Saturday Mr Dossey Wightman and a jury in which Mr H Hall was foreman, held an enquiry at the Reresby arms Denaby Main touching the death of Ernest Soar, one year and a few months old, who was drowned in a slop Tub at home in Dearne view, Denaby Main, on the previous (Friday) morning.
Eli Soar, a miner employed at an, and father of deceased said his son was a year and six months old. He was an healthy child. Witness believed the child to have been accidentally drowned.
Esther Soar, 40 years of age, said deceased was her brother. The accident happened on 12 April, at 8 o’clock in the morning. Witness was in the house when it happened, and her mother was ill in bed. There was a lot of brothers and sister downstairs at the time, and her father as gone to work when witness went into the kitchen, about three minutes after he had left the others, she found him in a small tub, which was used for keeping slops in. He was in head first and was dead. The tub was on the ground, and there was about 4 inches of water in it. It was always kept on the ground. Washing-up slots were put in the tub. Witness went and fetched Mrs Long. Deceased was in the back kitchen alone when he got in the tub. Witness was the oldest child present.
Mr A.G. Meggitt said the tub would be easy for any child to get in, and another juryman said he did not think it would be 18 inches from the ground.
The Coroner: Is it all right officer?
Police constable Midgley said there were no other evidence but perhaps the jury would like to know that he had found a small brush in the tub, which perhaps deceased had been reaching for when, she overbalanced herself.
The Coroner: Or whilst putting it in. It is wonderful the number of children who get drowned in maidening tubs and things of that kind. They get playing with the water, and, overbalanceding themselves, falling over the head in the water so that they cannot make any noise. I don’t think we can make any more of it, gentleman.
The jury concurred, and returned a verdict of “Accidental death.”