Page 129 - JULY - SEPTEMBER 2024 NEW TITLES_Neat

ADVANCE INFORMATION

Probing Deaths,

Saving Lives

Birmingham’s Victorian Doctor-

Coroner

Angela Coulter

KEY SELLING POINTS
The first-ever biography of a pioneering nineteenth century doctor-coroner and his inquests.
Meticulously researched and written in a clear style for non-specialists.
For all those interested in Victorian social history, the history of medicine and coronial history.

From the political and social turmoil of early nineteenth century Britain, a young Welsh doctor emerged in
Birmingham to play a leading role in the transformation of the town as physician, political activist, medical
reformer, and the borough’s first and most distinctive coroner.

Fearless campaigner, socially aware, driven, and fiercely independent, John Birt Davies had unique access to
the lives and deaths of ordinary citizens during this turbulent time. He looked after the health of all classes of
people, from the families of Lunar Society celebrities to those of the poor and vulnerable living in slums and
workhouses. And he played a major role in establishing Birmingham’s first medical school and its teaching
hospital.

As coroner, Birt Davies was committed to ensuring that all, especially the humblest, received impartial justice,
without fear or favour. During his long and at times turbulent career he presided over an astonishing thirty
thousand inquests. Accounts of these give unparalleled insight into how his contemporaries dealt with sudden,
unexplained and violent deaths, including suicides, murders and massive fatalities in arms factories, revealing
a great deal about popular attitudes and beliefs in the Victorian era.

Angela Coulter, after a career in health research at the University of Oxford, the King’s Fund and the Picker
Institute, stepped aside from writing academic papers and turned her attention to historical biography. This
account of the life and work of a nineteenth century public health pioneer and coroner – a significant figure in
Victorian Birmingham – is her eighth book. Angela lives in Oxfordshir

Publication Date: 28th September 2024 £13.99 ISBN: 9781805145370
Thema subject category: DNBH – Biography: historical, political and military
paperback 234 x 156 mm 336 pp Portrait Author location: Oxfordshire

Sales: Star Book Sales LLP
T: 01404 515050
E: enquiries@starbooksales.com
twitter.com/starbooksales