DIES BEFORE WEDDING

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 81, 17 January 1936, Page 8

DIES BEFORE WEDDING

TRAGIC END TO ROMANCE. Within nine days of the date fixed for their wedding the romance of an English barge captain and bis fiancee was shattered by a tragic accident. The bodies of the couple, Charles Albert Shellam, aged 19, of Gloucester and Irene Evans, aged 19, polisher, of Ladywood, were recovered from the Birmingham-Worcester canal on October 17. At the time of the accident Shellam was apparently walking on the towpath leading a horse that was pulling the barge, while Miss Evans was at the helm of the craft. The inquest had been previously adjourned because the doctor who made the post-mortem examination was unable to certify the cause of the girl's death. Certain organs were sent for analysis and the coroner, Mr F. T. Evers, now stated that this gave a negative result. No poison was found in either body and there was no evidence that the girl died drowning. A doctor stated, however, that after healing the analyst's report he came to the conclusion that the girl's death was duo to syncope owing to shock. The jury returned a verdict of accidental death in both cases. "Tt was most tragic," the coronetsaid, "that these young people, who seemed to have been in perfect amity and were to have been married in a few days' time, should have met their death through an accident.