May 2010
Did anybody see “History Cold Case” on BBC 2 last night? The team were researching a skeleton, found on an archaeological dig in Southwark, of a young woman, who, it transpired, died over 150 years ago.
Amazingly they found a probable identification for her: Elizabeth Mitchell, who died at St Thomas Hospital on 22 August 1851, aged 19. You can see her listed in the City of London Burial Index. Watch last night’s programme. Find out more about the City of London Burial Index in our knowledge base.
The programme clearly got the wrong entry. The woman was excavated from Cross Bones Burial ground in the parish of St Saviour Southwark. Burials in this ground were recorded in the St Saviour’s register, though rarely distinguished form those in the churchyard around the parish church. This entry is for a burial in the parish of St Thomas Southwark, and therefore cannot be the right one.
Hi Andrew
Thanks for your comment. As you say, the burial is supposed to have been in St Saviour in Southwark but the entry in CoLBI relates to St Thomas, Southwark. The help text from the findmypast website offers the following explanation:
St Thomas, Southwark
Burial records coverage: 1813 – 1854
Number of records: 3,348
St Thomas’s had long standing links with the hospital of the same name, and was initially part of it. The church merged with St Saviour’s in 1899, which became Southwark Cathedral in 1905. Having been used as a Chapter House for the Cathedral and more recently as an office space, the building is now awaiting repair due to damage accidentally sustained during the Jubilee Line extension programme.
Hope that helps, Debra
Can anybody please suggest how I could find a birth certificate or date of birth for Elizabeth Mitchell.
I am an astrologer, and find the nineteenth century fascinating. I see time as having a quality which affect those who live under it in different ways according to the moment of their birth, or as Carl Jung put it, anything that happens in a moment of time has the qualities of that moment of time. Elizabeth Mitchell was affected deeply by the time she lived in. Peoples lives were short and miserable by modern perspective. I do have some thoughts about major planetary patterns which affected the mid nineteenth century and how they might have affected Elizabeth Mitchell.
I was told that the birth certificate wouldn’t have her time of birth unless she was a twin. The chance of that kind of astrologers luck is unlikely. But I can get quite a lot of information without a time of birth. The time of birth gives greater precision and timing of events.
Cold Case looks like CSI just like anyother detective tv series:;’
for more info about Crossbones Graveyard, Redcross Way, London SE1 please visit the website.
The Friends of Crossbones are campaigning for a public Garden of Remembrance at Crossbones - please sign the online petition and help make this happen.
We also gather at the gates of Crossbones every month at 6:45pm
Hallo ,das mit Elisabeth Mitchel hat mich sehr bewegt und gerne hätte ich mehr erfahren über Sie . Gruß Marion
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