Bessie Violet Jenkins

Bessie Violet Jenkins died from cyanide poisoning at 80 80 Breakspears Road, Brockley on the morning of Saturday 26 September 1925.

She was a domestic servant and had recently arrived from 30 Ruth Street in Bargoed, Glamorgan four weeks earlier.

She was said to have been home sick.

An open verdict was returned.

Her mistress had gone out shopping and when she returned she found Bessie Jenkins unconscious on the kitchen floor. She died a short time later.

Bessie Jenkins's mistress, who spoke with a foreign accent, said that Bessie Jenkins had not seemed depressed or to complain during the month that she had been at her house. She said that for the first three weeks that she had been there that there had been another girl, but that for the previous week, as they had a charwoman coming in, she had been alone one day.

She said that on the Saturday morning that she assisted Bessie Jenkins in doing some housework and then went out shopping at noon, but that when she returned an hour later that she found her lying on the kitchen floor, unconscious. She said that she then went for help and telephoned for a doctor.

Several letters were found near to Bessie Jenkins.

A friend of Bessie Jenkins that had known her since the age of ten said that it was through her that Bessie Jenkins had come to London and that she frequently saw her in Brockley and found her to be healthy and cheerful.

She said that on Sunday 13 September 1925 that she went with her to Victoria and then to St Matins-in-the-Fields and that they later returned that evening over Westminster Bridge to Rye Lane where, when they were changing for a Brockley bus that Bessie Jenkins fell whilst alighting and hit her chest against a post. She said that later, during the week, that Bessie Jenkins told her that it hurt her.

However, when she was questioned at the inquest, she said that Bessie Jenkins otherwise had no worries at all, and when she was asked whether she had been home sick, she said that Bessie Jenkins had been a little home sick, but not very much.

The son of Bessie Jenkins's mistress said that he kept chemicals for photography in a cupboard, the door of which had no lock. He said that there had been a bottle of iodide of cyanide and another of cyanide of potassium in there and that one of the bottles appeared to have been touched, noting that when he went to look, they didn't seem to be in the same place that they had been when he had taken some developing powder out the previous night.

The Coroner then warned against keeping poison in open cupboards. When he addressed the son, he noted that there was no poison quite so dangerous as cyanide and yet he kept it in a cupboard that was open to the girl and that along with it there were spices and some almond essence. The Coroner said that it was a dreadful thing to do, but that he recognised that it had been through inadvertence.