A rather sad story from the pages of the Salford City Reporter of April 1916 tells the unhappily brief life story of 15-year-old Ellen Howarth.
Ellen lived with her mother on Whit Lane in Pendleton and worked as a weaver at Mandleberg’s Mill in Salford.
As per usual she’d left for work on Thursday 31 March at 6.20am, but when she didn’t come home at noon for her dinner, her mother Ellen Howarth Snr became worried.
She became frantic when she found out from police that her teenage daughter had not turned up for work that day.
An 18-year-old Salford labourer by the name of Arthur Lewis told an inquest that he passed Ellen at 8.30am on the day that she went missing.
She was walking along the canal towpath in the direction of Pendlebury, he said, and didn’t look upset or concerned in any way.
John Ingham, a watchman employed at Park House Bleachworks in Pendlebury, told the inquest that he knew the girl and since she had been reported missing from home he had walked along the canal bank several times looking for her.
He said that once again he was on canal towpath searching for Ellen on the Saturday afternoon and evening when a barge passed him at 7.45pm.
Ingham gave up the search for the day and went home only to return the next morning when he made a shocking discovery.
He saw the body of what appeared to be a young girl floating in the canal near to Robinson’s Bridge on the Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal.
He quickly obtained a rope and managed to pull her to the side, but she was already dead.
The inquest at Pendlebury Town Hall was held by the Coroner Mr G.S. Lereche, where her terribly sad story unfolded.
Ellen was fully clothed apart from her hat.
Police Sergeant Gould told the inquest that the body appeared to have been in the water for quite some time.
He found a small fracture at the back of her head which he assumed had been caused by a passing barge on the canal but there were no other marks on her body or signs of a struggle having taken place.
The Coroner pointed out that were no indications of how her body came to be in the water and the jury returned a verdict of “Found Drowned”.
I wonder what caused this poor girl to turn to such dramatic action? Especially at the tender age of 15?
Main image: Bolton Museum Archive Service
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