John Robert Hallam senior died accidentally at his home in North Melbourne in 1901. Because it was a sudden death an inquest had to be held. It revealed a life of heavy drinking that ultimately led to his death from suffocation in a drunken stupor.
At the Morgue this morning an Inquest was held by the City Coroner (Mr Candler) and a Jury of seven touching the death of John Robert Hallam of North Melbourne.
The evidence of his widow was that the deceased, who was 39 years of age, and a tailor by trade, came home very drunk on Friday night. He spoke to her about racehorses and sent out for three-pen-north of rum. He went to lie down on a sofa, where he was found on Saturday morning by his daughter. He was lying face downward and did not move. A doctor was sent for, and on his arrival he said that the man was dead.
Dr Mollison., who made the post-mortem examination, said that deceased’s nose was pressed over to the right side of the face. The cause of death was suffocation.
Constable Clark deposed to having seen the deceased on the sofa on Saturday morning. He was lying with his mouth and nose on the pillow of the sofa. There was no sign of any disturbance in the room, and there were no circumstances of suspicion connected with the affair.
The Coroner said that a very drunken man might easily fall into the position in which the deceased had been found on the sofa.
A juror asked Mrs Hallam if her husband was of a quarrelsome disposition. She replied in the negative, and said that he had drunk very heavily for eighteen years.
A verdict was returned that deceased was found dead from suffocation, occurring while he was in a state of intoxication.
The police and coroner were prepared to accept the death on face value as an accidental one, brought about by John himself being drunk and unable to move his face into a position where he could breathe properly. The question by one of the jurors is interesting, though, because it implies some suspicion that there have been more to it if John had been of a ‘quarrelsome disposition’. Was the juror suggesting that someone in the family had something to do with the death? There was nothing to trouble the coroner, however, and the verdict was that it was an accidental death.
Ten years earlier a woman had made a complaint that her husband, named John Hallam, had come home drunk and ‘knocked her about’. He claimed that she fell and hurt herself and the complaint was dismissed. There is no proof that this was John Robert Hallam, however, and the report might refer to another person with the same name.
Another newspaper report six years later also concerned a man named Hallam and it is possible that this John Robert Hallam was the same person. The wife of a man named John Robert Hallam took out a complaint in the Richmond Court that he had deserted her and the children. She subsequently withdrew the complaint, however, saying she found out he had not really deserted her. The husband said he had actually gone to Stawell to look for work and had secured permanent employment there.
Three years after this story John Robert Hallam died. His funeral took place in 1901 and the notice mentioned that his nickname was ‘Scotty’. He was buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery.
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