HC Deb 07 July 1835 vol 29 cc278-84

On the Motion of Mr. Cripps, the House resolved into a Committee on the County Coroners' Bill.

On the 6th Clause,

Mr. Curteis

objected to it on two grounds. In the first place, because it proposed to pay the Coroners out of the County-rates, and in the next place, because he considered that the sum proposed to be paid for mileage was too large. It was for these reasons that the former Bill was thrown out by the House of Lords.

Mr. Cripps

wished to correct the hon. Member when he stated, that the Bill was thrown out by the House of Lords in consequence of the payment to the Coroners. Now this was not the case. The fact was, that the House of Lords passed this Clause, but the Bill was subsequently thrown out by their Lordships, as every body must recollect, in consequence of objections which their Lordships entertained to allowing the Coroners' Courts to be open to the public. As to the amount charged for mileage in this Bill, it would be recollected that the Committee had divided upon this part of the Clause last year, and decided by a considerable majority that the amount charged was very reasonable.

Sir George Strickland

believed that Coroners were allowed 9d. each way by the Act of George 2nd; and although the Court of King's Bench had decided that they were only entitled to 9d. per mile one way, they continued to receive 9d. per mile each way. The object of the present Bill was merely to secure that allowance to them. When it was recollected that they were only allowed 1l. for every inquest, and that they were obliged to issue summonses, and go to a good deal of incidental expense, he thought the House would not consider 18d. a mile too much.

Mr. Wilson Patten

regretted that some provisions were not introduced for dividing the counties, as in some cases there were districts twenty miles in extent, and containing a population of several thousand inhabitants, without a Coroner.

Clause agreed to.

On Clause eight regulating the mode of election,

Mr. Cripps

observed, that he was quite aware that there were great objections to this Clause on the ground of its being the means of depriving a number of persons of their votes for the office of Coroner. In supporting this Clause, he did not wish it to be understood that he intended to oppose himself to the wishes of the House.

Mr. Jervis

said, that although he admired the principle of the Bill, he would sooner abandon it altogether than have the present Clause inserted in it. It would altogether abrogate the common law right of voting for Coroner, and substitute the Parliamentary right for it; but the hon. Member violated the common law right by substituting the Parliamentary one, and he violated the Parliamentary one by allowing Peers to vote. The Clause would most seriously alter the law, without the slightest necessity for the alteration; or without it having been shown that any difficulty had been found from the exercise of the law as it stood. He would vote against the Clause.

Sir John Wrottesley

trusted the hon. Gentleman would persevere in the Clause, which, in his opinion, was one of the best in the Bill.

Sir Matthew White Ridley

thought, that the hon. Member was acting upon a wrong principle in bringing forward such a Clause as this, tending to take away the rights of the lower classes. The expenses of Coroners were very enormous; and yet, if the question were put to any Coroner throughout England, he would say he was ill paid. Still, however, men were to be found who, for the sake of distinction, or influence, or progress in their respective professions, were ready enough to become candidates; and in the choice of men to fill such office, why should any be excluded from voting, merely because he possessed a smaller amount of property than another man?

Mr. Warburton

said, if the hon Member intended to propose any Amendment upon this Clause, he should do so at once. He was decidedly opposed to the limitation of the election to eight hours, because it would have the effect of making the struggle more violent between the parties, whose object would then be to try who could first get possession of the polling place, and bring up the greatest numbers on their own side to keep possession, to the exclusion of the other party, and, therefore, nothing could be apprehended from such a regulation but the most disorderly and tumultuous proceedings.

Mr. Hardy

moved as an Amendment, that every election of Coroner shall be by a majority of persons "resident" in the district at the time of the election, who shall be freeholders resident within the district, and also of all such persons resident within the said district who shall be possessed of an estate of land or tenements that shall entitle them to vote for Knights of the Shire, under the Reform Bill. He saw no objection to this principle.

Major Beauclerk

said, that he had voted for the Clause (in the Corporation Bill) for taking away the rights of freemen. He certainly had given that vote with much regret, but he was yet to learn that the vote was a wrong one. He voted upon the principle that a strong case had been made against the freemen; but he would not say that those who had come to an opposite opinion were not in the right. To the present Amendment he would give his warm support, and he hoped they would go back to the original principle of giving to every freeholder a right to vote.

Sir George Strickland

said, that he was inclined to extend the franchise as widely as possible. He thought that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Bridport was very valuable. Who were the persons most interested in the election of Coroners? The poorest men in the county.

Sir John Wrottesley

did not object to giving the freeholders the right to vote for Coroners; but if the country was to be at the expense and trouble of a registry, it was surely most desirable to make it available for the purposes of this Bill; it was also desirable that the poll should take place in one day.

Mr. Cripps

had some difficulty in knowing how to act in regard to the Clause. If the House thought that the Amendment would take away the difficulty, he would not oppose it. There was a difficulty in getting rid of those voters who had no right to vote at all. He agreed that, if possible, it was desirable to prevent all mob influence.

Mr. Warburton

said, that he was glad to find that the hon. Member by whom the Bill had been introduced had himself seen the difficulty of the case. The object of the Committee should be to attend to the rights of the voters, and at the same time to limit the number of days for polling. If limited to one day, he feared that tumult alone would carry the election. He believed the time was gone by when he should have proposed in the third Clause that the voting should take place in parishes, because if they wished to prevent tumult, they should subdivide the polling places. He would move, on the bringing up of the Report, that the Churchwardens do take the votes in the several parishes which would tend very much to diminish the expense of election.

Mr. Phillip Howard

thought the Coroners would be much less independent, if the voting took place in parishes. It would throw the election into the hands of large proprietors, and totally destroy all freedom of election.

Mr. Cripps,

previously to the Question being put, wished to state to the Committee if they objected to the original Clause, he had drawn up another, which he thought would obviate the difficulty—that Clause was to the effect, that all persons duly qualified to vote should have been in actual possession of lands and tenements in respect of which they were qualified, or should have been in possession of the rents and profits for six months previous to the election.

Mr. Warburton

proposed to omit the provision which recognised the right of Peers to vote.

Mr. Baines

said, he could see many reasons why a Peer should not vote for a Member of Parliament, but none to prevent him from voting for a Coroner.

Mr. Warburton

said, if they had now the right, why give it them by the Bill?

Clause eight, as amended, agreed to.

On Clause eleven, which provides that Coroners' Inquests be an open Court, having been put, much discussion arose.

Mr. Warburton

observed, that this Clause had been introduced in consequence of a Resolution adopted by the House two Sessions ago. There was nothing in this Clause which he objected to, until they came towards the close of it. Power was there given to the Crown "to order all persons to retire from the said Court, when, in the judgment of the said Coroner, the ends of public justice require the exclusion of such persons from the said Court." This power was subject to the approbation of the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, or the Secretary for the Home Department; but this restriction did not appear to him to be sufficient. It appeared that very frequently in those cases, when the Court ought to be open, endeavours were made to exclude the public. He would not allude to any other instances than those of Manchester at the time of the unfortunate destruction of life there, and the late affair at Wolverhampton; for considering this investigation, though there was no loss of life, it was very much in the nature of a Coroner's Inquest. It was clearly a case of great excitation on the part of the people. The troops were called out, and there was contradictory evidence; and in order to quiet the public mind, it was very important that the Court should be open during the progress of investigation. Yet the individual deputed to take the examination, if it had been left to his judgment, would have excluded the public, and the noble Lord, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, was willing to confirm the decision of the officer so deputed, unless that House had interfered and induced the noble Lord to throw the Court open. The judgment of the officer himself, or of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, was not, therefore, sufficient, and he was desirous to limit the exclusion of the public to particular cases, in which the ends of justice would be defeated, if the public were not excluded. He would, therefore, propose as an Amendment, that after the words "public justice," the following words be inserted—"where the ends of public justice might be defeated by the escape of an accused party, or of a material witness, in case the Court was allowed to be open."

Mr. Poulter

suggested, that after the words "in the judgment of the Coroner," the words, "and the Jury," should be introduced, as it would be important to have their approbation in case of the public being excluded.

Mr. Cripps

said, that he could not consent to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Bridport. The Committee must be aware that the House of Commons was in favour of an open Court, and the other House in favour of a close Court; and in consequence of this difficulty the learned Attorney-General had framed the Clause as it now stood, and which had afterwards received the sanction of the noble Lord, then Lord Chancellor. Both these learned Gentlemen had said, that there could be no objection to this Clause; and, as it had received their sanction, he would not presume to alter it.

Mr. Maclean

objected to the introduction of the words "and the Jury," as it might give rise to unseemly collisions between the Coroner and the Jury. The Coroner was the presiding officer, and to his decision he should be willing to leave the matter.

Sir S. Whalley

thought that it would give the public additional protection if the approbation of the Jury were necessary before turning it into a close Court. He thought the Amendment would be satisfactory to the House.

Mr. Wilson Patten

thought that Juries who were casually summoned, and knew nothing about the case, would be very incompetent persons to decide upon the impropriety or fitness of excluding the public.

Mr. Maclean

asked the hon. Member for Shaftesbury how he meant to manage, in case there was a difference of opinion between the Coroner and the Jury? The Coroner might wish to close the Court, and the Jury might wish to have it open?

Mr. Hardy

said, that there was much of plausibility in an open Court, but he thought that there was a great similarity between a Coroner's Jury and that of the Grand Inquest. They did not sit for the purpose of punishment, but of inquiry, and pending that inquiry no person was so fit a judge as the Coroner of whether the public should be excluded or not. All the mischief which they wished to avoid might be done if the Coroner were obliged publicly to state to the Jury his reasons for wishing to exclude the public, and therefore he was willing to leave the matter to the discretion of the Coroner. His acts would always take place in the presence of twelve witnesses, who would be afterwards enabled to give their opinions to the public (as there was nothing to prevent their doing so), in condemnation of the conduct of the Coroner, if they thought he had improperly excluded the public. He had known instances where criminals had escaped for the want of the inquiry being kept secret. He remembered, not long ago, a case of a most cruel murder, where the person who had actually committed it, was present at the time the inquiry before the Coroner took place, and finding the evidence likely to implicate him, took himself away and never was heard of afterwards. If on that occasion there had been a close Court, the probability was, that the criminal would have been brought to justice. He trusted, therefore, that the hon. Members would withdraw their Amendments.

Mr. Jervis

thought that all ancient practice showed that the Court of the Coroner ought to be open, reserving to the Coroner the power to dismiss from the place all those who acted against decorum.

Sir M. W. Ridley

considered that the Coroner's Court ought to be a close Court, as it bore the most strict analogy to the Grand Jury. He was decidedly of opinion that if the Coroner's Court were allowed to be open the ends of justice would be defeated.

Sir George Strickland

said, as an Englishman, he was of opinion that all Courts of Justice should be open; but he was of opinion that, under peculiar circumstances, the ends of justice might be defeated, if the Coroner had not the power of closing his Court when those circumstances arose. He was satisfied with the Clause as it stood.

Mr. Poulter

did not mean that the discussion upon whether the Court should be open or not should be public; that would defeat the very ends he had in view.

Mr. Palmer

did not see that any advantage would arise from inserting the word jurors, because the Coroner, who was usually a professional man, was to be supposed the best judge of whether the Court ought to be open or not.

Mr. Potter

instanced the case of a man who was executed at the last Assizes for Lancaster under peculiar circumstances. In the absence of his family he administered poison to a child. An Inquest was held before a Coroner who always kept his Court closed, and the verdict was "Accidental Death." The neighbours heard of that, and applied to the Magistrates who instituted an inquiry, and the man was afterwards found guilty.

Mr. Maclean

observed that the Coroner could not exclude strangers without alleging some reason for so doing to the Jury; and although the hon. Member for Shaftesbury contemplated two cases, that of an individual accused who might hear something that would lead to his escape from justice, yet he thought the statement of such a reason for closing the Court would be very unfair, and have the effect of prejudicing the Jury.

The Committee divided on Mr. Poulter's Amendment. Ayes 44; Noes 37; Majority 7.

List of the AYES.
Aglionby, H. Alston, R.
Baines, E. Potter, R.
Baldwin, Dr. Ronayne, D.
Barnard, E. G. Rundle, J.
Beauclerk, Major Russell, Lord J.
Berkeley, F. F. Sheldon, E. R. C.
Brotherton, J. Strutt, E,
Collier, J. Strickland, Sir G.
Curteis, Major Thornley, T.
Elphinstone, H. Trelawney, Sir W.
Ewart, W. Villiers, F.
Fielden, J. Wakley, T.
Harland, W.C Warburton, H.
Hector, C. J. Whalley, Sir S.
Hindley, C. Williams, W. A.
Howard, P. Wilmot, Sir J.
Jervis, F. G. Wood, Ald.
Lennox, Lord G. Wrightson, W. B.
Mangles J. Wrottesley, Sir J.
Maule, F.
Moystyn, Hon. E. TELLER.
O'Connell,.J. Poulter, J.
O'Connell, M.
Parrott, J. PARIED OFF.
Pendarves, E. W. Divett, E.

The House resumed, Committee to sit again.

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