Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 06 December 1929
Found Drowned.
Elderly Denaby Miner Found in Bolton Floods
The mystery of the disappearance of John Cupitt, 1, Doncaster Road, Denaby Main, was solved on Wednesday, when his body was found lying in about three feet of water in the meadow floods at Bolton. Cupitt had been missing since Oct. 23rd.
At the inquest yesterday at the Angel Hotel. Bolton, Annie Pearce, 11, Balby Market, Doncaster, said that Cupitt was her father. He was 71 years old, and had been in lodgings at Doncaster Road Denaby Main. Ifor several years. She had not seen her father since the coal dispute, although she used to visit him. She could never catch him at his lodgings. “I was told on Oct. 25th that be had been missing for two days. He left his lodgings then, saying that he was going to his former landlady, with whom he had lived for 12 years. He never went there.”
Answering the Coroner, Mrs. Pearce said her father had not been washed for a year.
John Wm. Colton, motor driver, of Littlemore Road, Wath, said that on Wednesday he was standing near the Old Mill, looking over the flooded Meadow Fields at Bolton with a pair of glasses. “I noticed a bulky article in the water, which had a belt round it, and after I had got near it by wading in about three feet of water found it was the body of a man. I pulled it to the side and then went and brought a policeman to the place.”
P.c. Bainbridge said that in consequence of information from the last witness he went to Meadow Fields and saw the body, which was taken to the Angel Hotel. After an examination it was seen that the man’s description was that of a man who had been reported missing by the Mexboro police. Except for the description there was nothing on the man to show who he was. Indeed, there was nothing except an old clay pipe. Mrs. Pearce was communicated with, and she later identified the body as that of her father. The man must have been in the water for several weeks.
The Coroner said there was nothing to show how the man got into the water and there would be an open verdict of “Found drowned.”