11 OCTOBER

1909 Reports appeared today of a mystery surrounding the deaths of three inmates of the Hemel Hempstead workhouse after they had all been bathed on the same day. The first fatality was a 54-year-old man named Howells, who expired twenty minutes after bathing. He was said to have been in the terminal stages of consumption, and had needed carrying to the bathroom. He had been an inmate of the workhouse for a fortnight and had no known relatives. Edward Almond, who died six hours after being given his bath, had been suffering from broncho-pneumonia. He was 56, and had a brother living in the locality. The third of the victims was a man named Adams who had died four days after the bath, following which a haemorrhage had occurred. He was aged 68 and had been suffering from bronchitis. It later emerged that the bathing had been carried out by the workhouse porter, Herbert Goodson, without the presence of a nurse as regulations required. The temperature of the bath in each case had been 89.5 degrees, which the workhouse medical officer claimed was well below the minimum of 98 degrees that he had laid down. Overall responsibility for bathing inmates was, however, in the hands of Nurse May Bellamy, whom an inquest found to be guilty of culpable negligence. Bellamy was committed to trial for manslaughter but later acquitted of the charge.