Accident 150 years ago: Mary Ward was the first victim of car traffic

On August 31, 1869, life awoke at Birr Castle in Parsonstown, Ireland, at 5:14. In pre-electric times, the sun was still the day clock of the people before: Shortly after sunrise, servants prepared the breakfast, soon to the residents and guests of the spacious property came together.

Nobody had any idea what day's horror would dawn on this Tuesday morning.

It was an illustrious company. Visiting Lord Henry William Crosbie Ward, Viscount of Bangor and one of Ireland's representatives in the House of Lords, with his wife: Mary Ward was a cousin of William Parsons, who died two years earlier, 3rd Earl of Rosse, builder of Birr Castle and an outstanding scientist of his time.

Already since her childhood Mary went in and out of the Parsons' house. Her 27-year-old cousin William was once a fatherly friend, later close confidant and promoter.

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Mary's drawing talent and curiosity was discovered in the gardens of Birr Castle. At the age of three, it is said that she began to gather insects - at that time the wealthy liked to move through nature with their butterfly net and botanical glass.

Mary did not leave it at that. When she was 18, the astronomer James South watched her examine insects with a magnifying glass and draw in great detail. He suggested giving a microscope to the talented young woman. It was the beginning of a career that seemed barely possible in the mid-19th century: girls had a formal academic education in Britain and Ireland. But in Mary's environment, encounters with the scientific elite were part of everyday life. So she learned informally but quickly.

Offaly Historical Society

Illustration by Mary Ward: She wrote telescopic and microscopy introductions for beginners, one of the books was aimed at children

In 1869 she was already eight times mother, 42 years old and was after numerous essays and three highly popular books even as one of the most prominent scientists in the British Isles. It fit perfectly into the extended Parsons family.

Because the Parsons were researchers and designers. William was an astronomer and had been with the famous Royal Society for about six years. His sons were to become famous engineers, as early as his youth numerous machines were created in their workshops.

One of them was to cost her life that day.

Shortly before eight o'clock in the morning, the breakfast party had dissolved and left the house. For the Wards and Parsons, the 31st of August began as a holiday in the countryside. You wanted to do something.

Are you going at a snail's pace?

Early on were also the Justice of the Peace James Rollestone and the second oldest Parsons son Randal. They walked towards the city, soon they met the Parsons steam car. At the wheel, Rollestone said later, had housed Teacher Biggs, beside and on elevated benches, the two youngest Parsons and Henry and Mary Ward. According to Rollestone, the pace was comfortable: Twice the walkers would have overtaken the car, most recently at 8.20.

It was a country game, a pleasurable pleasure ride. Four nobles and a tutor puffed steaming through the fields and turned from the gardens of the castle right into the narrow Oxmantown Mall. Across the fields of barley, they slowly came closer to the church of Saint Brendan.

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The fact that the steam car moved with only "three and a half to four miles", as Rollestone explained, was not due to technical limitations. The heavy companions could be far faster - but they were not allowed to.

In 1865, after years of protests, the lobby of the coachmen and transporters succeeded in effectively slowing down the booming steam traffic that threatened their business. The "Red Flag Act" set the maximum speed at four miles per hour. In addition, the car and bus drivers were obliged to run a Warner with a red flag 55 meters in front of each steam vehicle.

The absurd dictum made steam cars in the UK and Ireland completely unprofitable and unattractive.

Suddenly the car hopped

Around Parsonstown, now called Birr, William Parsons' automobile was well known. Often the lord around the town had been seen steaming around. But after his death and the departure of the bereaved, the car was rarely seen. And then for the population always an eye-catcher.

No wonder then that Mary Magrath wanted to show this car to her friend, with whom she was having tea in a house opposite the church, when she saw it coming up Oxmantown Mall. The women hurried to the street.

So it happened that the accident had more witnesses. Rollestone and Randal Parsons saw the car turn into the sharp curve behind the church on the right. Magrath and her friend stood directly across the street, a worker named Flannery happened to pass by.

Headmistress Biggs turned the car into Cumberland Street, now called Emmet Street, when the car hopped at the point of the curve. He was not quick, Biggs said he could have "stopped the vehicle quickly and easily at any time". Why the car hopped? He did not know: he had not touched the curb either. Rollestone and Magrath confirmed that. "Only after the lady fell in front of the car did Magrath watch" the car on one side lifted briefly. "

It was the moment that ended Mary Ward's life. She was sitting on the edge of her seat, Biggs explained, falling forward in front of the car.

Immediately Biggs jumped off, Magrath, Flannery and another man hurried over. Together they carried the body of the dying woman across the street to the practice of the physician James Woods.

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He did what was still possible. But the woman's jaw was destroyed and her neck was broken, as the doctor discovered. Mary Ward had made convulsions and wheezing sounds. Less than three minutes after the accident, she was dead. Over her head, the newspapers reported in the following days, the car drove off. This message seemed to confirm the accuracy of the Red Flag Act.

The accident was investigated at Castle Birr the very next day. The judge and medical examiner John Corcoran took over the presidency, 13 honorable gentlemen from Parsonstown had been sworn in as a jury.

Corcoran questioned tutor Biggs, Doctor Woods, and eyewitnesses Rollestone and Magrath, but not mourning widower Ward, who had sat next to his wife. Nobody asked if there was a flag warner in front of the car, as the law demanded. But all statements confirmed that driver Biggs had behaved completely correctly and nothing and no one blamed for the tragic event. Judges and jury joined and condoled the family.

Thus ended Mary Ward, who could write history as an autodidactically trained scientist, as the first by name known victim of the car road traffic.

Today, the Mary Ward Center of Heritage commemorates the extraordinary woman in her hometown of Ferbane. And in Castle Ward, the home of her husband Henry Ward's family, you can visit their microscopes, writing and scientific utensils in a memorial room.

But most visitors do not want that anymore today. They do not visit Castle Ward, the ancestral home of some noble family, but "Winterfell" from the series "Game of Thrones" - Castle Ward was one of the locations.

So they miss the true tragedy.