Baby

The body of a newly born child was found in a brook near Box Railway Station on the afternoon of Tuesday 26 August 1924.

It was found by an engine driver on the GWR that had lived in Palmer Street in Chippenham. He said that on the Tuesday he had been on his engine in the up siding at Bix Station a about 1.10pm when he noticed something floating in the brook that ran underneath the railway metals.

He said that he then went to the brook and turned the object over with a stick and saw that it was the body of a baby.

He said that he then informed the porter of the find and that he was just about to proceed to Corsham with his train when the police arrived.

The fireman with the same train gave similar evidence. 

The porter said that when the engine driver and fireman came over to him and informed him of their discovery, they all went back to the brook and recovered the body, which by then had floated some 200 yards down stream. He said that the police were then informed.

A police sergeant said that when he arrived the body was lying by the side of the brook and that he then had it taken to the mortuary.

A doctor from Box said that when he examined the child's body at the mortuary that he found that it was that of a nel-born child and that, in his opinion, had had a separate existence. 

He said that it weighed 7lbs, was under ten days old, and that it had probably been in the water quite three weeks.

He said that the child's cause of eath had been due to suffocation, but that he could not say whether the child had been suffocated beforebeing placed into the water, or after.