Sudden Death

On Thursday evening week a funeral was about to take place in the burial-ground of Oldham Church, when one of the constables of Oldham, acting under the direction of a county coroner, requested the officiating clergyman to withold solemnising the rites of burial until an inquest had been held to investigate the casue of death of the deceased, an aged man of the name of John Duckworth, a farmer, at Block Lane, near Oldham. The funeral was at once delayed until the following day, the coffin being deposited in the vaults underneath the church.__ On Friday an inquest was accordingly held at the Greave's Arms, near the church, by Mr. Molesworth, deputy coroner, when it was stated that the deceased had only been unwell twelve hours; he seemed to have been attacked very suddenly by a stroke of paralysis, or some similar disease, and had died on Thursday week. Mr. Duckworth was sixty-seven years of age, and is said to have been possessed of considerable property. ___A verdict of 'Death from natural causes' was returned