Mary Susanna Coventry and Mary Vincent Walkden – the two English engineering wives
Mary Susanna Coventry and Mary Vincent Walkden were two English women who were married to two of the English engineers who worked on the construction of the railroad between Aarhus/Randers and Struer/Holstebro in 1862-1866. They both died after giving birth and are therefore buried in Skive Cemetery.
Routing, construction and operation of the railroad
By law of March 4, 1857, the route of the railroad was established: Århus-Langå-Viborg-Skive-Venø Bay (Struer) or Holstebro with a branch line to Randers. The Railway Act of March 10, 1861 stipulated that both a longitudinal line was to be built to connect the market towns of East Jutland. And a transverse line from Langå via Viborg and Skive to Venø Bay and Holstebro. The Danish state was to pay for the construction of the transverse line, while the English company Peto, Brassey & Betts was to build and operate the line through the limited company “Det danske Jernbane-Driftsselskab”. The engineering firm Peto, Brassey & Betts was by far the largest railroad construction company of the 19th century with thousands of employees in several countries around the world. The company was often responsible for financing and operating the railroads they built. In Denmark, the company was responsible for the construction of the railways in Schleswig and Northern Jutland.
The war of 1864 comes across
The construction of the line progressed quickly. The goal was to open the entire line in the summer of 1863, but it didn’t happen that quickly. The Finance Act of 1863-64 stated that the entire Langå-Skive line was to be opened on July 1, 1863, but only the Langå-Viborg line was opened to traffic on July 21, 1863. The line between Viborg and Skive was not opened until October 17, 1864. The delay was due to the outbreak of war between Denmark and Prussia/Austria in early 1864. Between May and November 1864, both Viborg and Skive were repeatedly occupied by enemy troops, and this was also the case when the line finally opened.
The line between Skive and Struer was opened to traffic on November 17, 1865. The war of 1864 and the lack of clarification of where the station in Struer should be located caused the completion of the line to be delayed.
Engineers and the death of women
There were six British engineers working on the railroad, and in 1862 two of them, Henry Holford Coventry and Charles Walkden, took up residence in Skive with their wives. Skive was conveniently located in the middle of the line between Langå and Holstebro, so it was an excellent place to settle down with the family while the railway was being built.
On June 6, 1863, Mary Coventry, 32 years old, died of puerperal fever after giving birth to a son, James, by caesarean section.
Barely a year later, Mary Walkden died. She gave birth to a daughter on May 3, 1864, who died the next day, and on May 7, Mary Walkden died of puerperal fever, aged 35. Both mother and daughter were buried on May 9 – in the middle of a period when Skive was occupied by Prussian troops during the war between Denmark and Prussia/Austria. Nevertheless, it is reported that Mrs. Walkden’s funeral was magnificently attended by people from near and far, and everyone was moved by the young woman’s tragic fate” (Jul i Skive 1938, p. 25).
Puerperal fever
Puerperal fever is a bacterial infection of the uterus after childbirth. The disease is characterized by high fever and soreness in the uterus. Due to a lack of insight into the cause of the disease, it was rampant until the mid-1800s in the form of epidemics with high mortality rates. It became rarer after the Austrian physician I.P. Simmelweis in 1847 advocated antiseptic principles (hand washing etc.), but this understanding of the need for proper hygiene had not yet taken hold in Skive in the early 1860s. In Skive parish, a total of five women died of puerperal fever in 1863-64.
Postscript
After the completion of the railway construction, the two engineers traveled back to England. In 1887 and 1909, engineer Coventry and his son James visited the grave site at Skive Cemetery.
Sources
- The reinforcement man: Around the Skive of the sixties. In: Christmas in Skive 1938, p.25-31