LIBRARIAN Susan Halstead has turned the pages of history to look at some unusual deaths in the Burnley area.

Susan, who works in the reference library at Burnley was prompted to look back through church registers following an outside request for information.

She unearthed the following from the archives for the parish church of Holme in Cliviger, dated 1742 -1841, which is published by the Lancashire Parish Registry Society and found in many of the county's reference libraries.

Susan reports: "The reason I love being a reference librarian is that I learn something new every day. A recent letter requested details of unusual deaths in church registers and our research for this inquiry revealed some intriguing causes.

"It is a paradox that the way someone died can tell us so much about how they lived.

"Among the cases we found was poor Ellen Cunliffe of four days 'dying from its birth' in 1797 and the sad entry in 1794 for James, also four days old, who was a monster unable to take my nutrient'.' "Life was no less difficult for children as they grew older; Harry died at 2 , burnt to death by being clothed in cotton!' and helping out on the family farm proved dangerous for Benjamin, 12, who was killed by a cow to which he had fastened himself by a rope'.

"On attaining adulthood, there were many ailments to be avoided which the unfortunate John Chadwick did not do. At the age of 20 in 1807, he died of quinsy caught by sleeping on the grass'.

"Outdoor pursuits also caused the untimely death of John Faber, a 26-year-old pauper, in 1793, from scrofula and consumption caught by night hunting'.

"Work on the farm was, however, unrelenting and this contributed to the death of John Smith in 1808, 'overheated by mowing' and Ellen in the same year who 'drowned in a well the water only nine inches deep'.

"There were many deaths in middle age from mortification of the bowels' and stoppage of the intestines' but, surely, the fate of John Howarth in 1800 must have been unique - indigestion after a plentiful meal upon a famished stomach at the last funeral'.

"Although living conditions were very harsh, it is surprising how many people lived into their 70s and 80s, dying at last of gradual decay'; some even dying of 'old age' at 84.

"However, some suffered a harsher end and the pauper, John Schofield, died in 1799 at 70 years from want of food, cloaths and bedding, in this hard winter, alas!"