STRANGE BUT TRUE

Drunk in charge of a horse and cart

Drunk driving may seem to be a comparatively new criminal offence confined to those at the wheel of motor cars, lorries or vans but it has been with us ever since vehicles with wheels were invented and especially those pulled by horses. Although anyone who risked their lives in past times through such a foolhardy practice may not have been liable to prosecution by the law the consequences were often punishment enough as we can see from a particularly flagrant case from 200 years ago.

John Andrew, aged 33, was a carrier of goods, that is he owned a waggon and horses and plied his trade between his home in Bourne and the surrounding towns and villages, doing regular business at Stamford.

On the evening of Friday 3rd September 1824, he was on his way from Bourne to Stamford driving his waggon heavily laden with goods and pulled by two horses with his wife and another passenger but unfortunately he had been drinking and, as was later ascertained, was somewhat intoxicated. The road on which he was travelling is now known as the A6121 and motorists need to be careful even today because it is narrow, winding and undulating with many steep sections, but at that time before the introduction of tarmacadam would have been extremely narrow and hazardous with an uneven surface.

The road is particularly dangerous around Toft and after leaving the village there is a steep hill leading down to the Manthorpe turn and it was here that Andrews came to grief in an accident graphically described by the Stamford Mercury.

“From the maddening effects of liquor”, reported the newspaper, “the wretched man urged the horses at a most furious rate down the hills until, in descending the hill near Manthorpe Cross, he himself became alarmed and jumped off the shafts to endeavour to stop them. In the attempt, he unfortunately fell and both the wheels of the waggon passing over his body, he was so dreadfully crushed that he expired in consequence in a few minutes. His wife, although she jumped from the waggon, received no injury and the other passenger was equally fortunate.”

An inquest was held the following Monday when the coroner, Mr Samuel Edwards, recorded a verdict that Andrew had been "killed by the wheels of a waggon passing over his body, he being at the time in a state of intoxication".

He also ruled that the waggon and horses were found to be “deodand”, a legal term in use at the time to identify the instrument, whether it be an animal or inanimate thing, that caused a person’s death and to impose a penalty, in this case a fine of ten shillings, on the owners which went to the King and was intended to be spent for charitable purposes, a practice that was abolished in 1846.

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