The Inquest Concludes

One of the medical gentlemen in attendance on that fatal day in Chatham was probably Richard Cooper Todd, a Royal Artillery surgeon who was present at the scene. The inquest report stated that:

He saw the deceased enter and going in the tiger did not appear to be very friendly with her; she struck him on going in and he laid down. She then proceeded to her performance with the lion and afterwards turned round and again struck the tiger. It appeared angry and immediately seemed to turn upon the deceased; rearing upon his hind legs and seizing her by the neck, she fell on her back and the tiger crouching over her, he [the surgeon] saw no more of her until removed from the den, when he hastened to her assistance. She was perfectly insensible and had lost a great deal of blood and her face and lips were very pale. She was still alive, the heart was beating, but she was perfectly unconscious. Witness placed his hand on the wound in the neck to stop the bleeding and administered some brandy to deceased, but she was unable to swallow it and in a very few minutes her heart ceased to beat. There were four wounds on the left side of the neck, a slight wound on the right leg and another on the chin, caused by the teeth of the tiger, the under jaw of the animal having caused a very large wound under the chin, which aided by the shock her system had sustained, produced death.

The jury returned a verdict to the effect that deceased was killed by a male tiger whilst
exhibiting in its den and expressed a strong opinion against the practice of allowing persons to perform in a den with animals.

38 Daily News (London, England) Monday, January 14, 1850; Issue 1135
Copied from: http://www.georgewombwell.com/articles/TheLionQueens.pdf

Ellen Blight was just seventeen at the time. George Wombwell died almost exactly a year after this incident. And Ann, as we have seen from the censuses, from then on kept the Blight family close to her as the menagerie continued to criss-cross the country. There must have been some very raw and guilty consciences in the higher echelons of the menagerie management.

Wombwell Menagerie, 1847. From http://vichist.blogspot.com.cy/2012/03/travelling-menageries.html