VPRS 24/PO

Box 48 1857/100

Item 100

Lydia Hester Gurr

23 July 1857 at Cabbage Tree Hill Creek, Creswick

Accidentally drowned in a water hole on same day and there are not any marks of violence on her body.

Jurors

Edward Deeming?

Thomas James xxx

William Keen

James Muir

Henry Grenfeld xxx

William Bowell

Williaam Copeland

Joseph Daniel

John Whitcombe

Ralph Young xxx

William Burns

Martin Meaney

Witness

Hester Gurr

I am mother of the dec who was aged two years and five months. Yesterday about midday I was washing outside my tent and the dec was playing near me and in about five minutes after I missed her and immediately went to enquire for her at Mrs Butts and Mrs Copeland’s but she was not there. Then I went to look for her and at last found her in a water hole near my tent which is about five feet deep with about ? (obscured) feet of water in it. I was not able to reach the dec myself tho I tried to do so and I then called Henry Daws who took out the dec. She was quite dead when taken out

Hester Gurr (signed)

Witness Henry Daws, miner

Of Slaty Creek Road

23 July 1857

I was in bed yesterday about midday and I heard Mrs Gurr calling her child by name and immediately after I heard her crying out that her child was in a water hole and was there man here. I got up and went to the hole and found the dec lying on her back with her head under water and some of her clothes on top of water. I took her out immediately. She was quite dead I think. The water hole was about ten or twenty yards from Mrs Gurr’s tent. It was about five feet deep with about two feet of water in it. There were not any marks whatever on the child.

Henry Daws xxx