James Morton looks at how a high court judge's final sordid moments were hushed up in a famous 19th-century coroner's court case

Inquests into deaths are much in the news at the moment, which has triggered recollections of an infamous case from the 19th century.

It revolved around Arthur Brown, the sparky Victorian coroner who refused to bow to pressure over the death of a High Court judge.

Sir Charles James Watkin Williams died taking what The Times called 'post-prandial' exercise while on assize in Nottingham on 17 July 1884.

He had been on circuit with Mr Justice Lopes.

It had all been very formal and Lopes had required the then almost obsolete custom of having the declaration against vice and immorality read in court.

Williams had certainly been taking post-prandial exercise but unfortunately it had been in a brothel.

'Corinthian pursuits' said the Fortnightly Review a little later.

Some accounts of the story have it that the establishment was in the appropriately named Low Pavement, but in fact it was in the high street.

The police were called by the madam, a Mrs Salmond, and the judge's body was back in his lodgings by 11pm.

However, by then too many people knew what had really happened.

The coroner was put under considerable pressure over the conduct of the inquest.

He had, reported Reynolds's News, been instructed 'on the highest legal authority' to limit the inquiry very materially indeed and to tell the jury to hear evidence only of identification and the cause of death.

Presumably, the highest legal authority was the Lord Chancellor.

Brown was having none of it.

Everyone in his court - from a chimney sweep upwards - was going to be treated in the same way, he told his jury when they all convened at the judges' lodgings.

Curiously, the jury did not at first agree.

They were quite content to go along with the establishment and hear only cause of death and identification evidence, they said when they returned after a retirement.

Touching their collective forelock, they did not think they should enquire how his lordship had died.

Brown would have none of that either and sent them back to rethink things.

Half an hour later they fell into line.

Now, counsel, a Mr Acton, was to try to put a stop to this renegade behaviour and received short shrift.

Reynolds's News reported the following exchange:

Acton: I appeal to the jury.

Coroner: You must appeal to me, Mr Acton.

Acton: I intended to appeal through you.

Coroner: Well, I am exceedingly sorry not to listen to your appeal for I don't think I should be doing my duty.

The reality of the evening's events was that Sir Charles had arrived at about 10.15pm, stayed around a quarter of an hour and then 'he made a noise in his breathing'.

The prostitute involved - Nellie Banks - gave him some water but he died within two or three minutes.

In fact, Sir Charles was not very old - he was only 56 - but he had a heart condition for which, said his physician, any excitement, mental or physical could prove fatal.

He had been abroad the previous winter but at a recent reception his friends had noticed how ill he looked.

Accidental death was the only possible verdict and it was duly returned.

Now, some of the papers had a field day.

The sectarian papers such as The Sentinel and The Christian Commonwealth in the ongoing battle for purity were naturally aghast and the naughty Reyolds's News headlined the inquest 'Discreditable and dreadful death of a judge'.

It was also at the time railing against details of a case of gross indecency in Dublin being suppressed.

Curiously, the crusading journalist WT Stead's Pall Mall Gazette was sympathetic to the judge, simply noting he had died suddenly of heart disease.

One wonders whether Lopes knew where his colleague was going or if indeed he had gone with him.

What steps did he take in the attempted cover-up? He cannot have been ignorant of that bit of the evening's entertainment.

Perhaps because of his discretion Lopes, who was not regarded as the most talented of the judiciary, was eventually made a Law Lord.

In the meantime, he did not return the favour of Stead's gentle reporting.

He later sentenced Stead to three months' imprisonment for procuring a little girl - although Stead had only done it to show that child prostitution was flourishing.

Stead rather enjoyed his martyrdom, and later drowned in the Titanic disaster.

As for Sir Charles, he was commemorated, if that is the right word, in a music hall song of the time.

Ta-ra-a-boom-de-ay seems appropriate but I fancy it came rather later.

No doubt someone will be able to tell me which it was.

James Morton is a former criminal law specialist solicitor and now a freelance journalist