Some 19th century Gidley inquests in Victoria, Australia

Family Search have recently published Inquest Deposition Files from the state of Victoria, Australia. I've learnt a lot from these records, not least about the harsh conditions endured by the early settlers in Australia.
There are several errors recording first names throughout these records.

1. Elizabeth Gidley, who died 5 March 1878 in the Lunatic Asylum in Ararat.
Elizabeth suffered from dementia and the symptoms would be familiar to anyone who has had to watch an elderly relative decline. She was admitted to the Asylum in June 1876 and by the time of her death was unable to swallow and had to be force fed. Death was due to exhaustion from paralysis. The verdict was, in rather bald language, disease of the brain.
November 2021 update: she could be the widow of Samuel Gidley, whom she married in 1854 in Victoria. This Elizabeth's maiden name was Costellow or Castellan, and Samuel died in 1857. See 3. below: John (more likely to be Samuel) Gidley.

2. Michael Thomas Gidley, who died 14 March 1890 in Melbourne.
In the inquest documents the name Thomas Gidley is occasionally used, and Michael has been inserted.
He was found unconscious, injured by a fall, in the street, was taken to Melbourne Hospital and died there the same evening. His wife Florence deposed that he was subject to fits and had suffered one early that morning in bed but had got up as usual and gone to work as a storeman, but never returned. He was aged 31, therefore born about 1859, and lived at 25 Palmerston Street, Carlton. They had 2 children.
The cause of death was by injuries received after falling in an epileptic fit.
Michael was interesting because his birth was recorded in the Australia, Birth Index, 1788-1922 on Ancestry. He was the son of Thomas Gidley and Winifred Canavan (in other records her surname is written Kavanagh or Kerneban) and was born in Woolshed, near Beechworth, Victoria, Australia in 1859, at the height of the gold rush there. The Malcolm/Cooke Family Tree on Ancestry, whose owner is descended from a sister of Michael Gidley, has traced this Thomas back to Thomas Simmonds Gidley who died in Victoria in 1874 aged about 42. The entry in the Australia Death Index on Ancestry death certificate records his parents as Richard Gidley and Bridget Simmons, which makes Thomas very definitely part of the Cornish Gidley diaspora. It's possible he was the Nicholas Gidley born about 1828, who is at home in Little Killiow, Kea, Cornwall in the 1841 census, or he could be a younger brother of Nicholas, and unrecorded in the census. Certainly Nicholas disappears after 1841 - no death or further reference in England. There are a couple of references to a Thomas Gidley in this part of Victoria in other sources in Ancestry. Although there were other Thomas Gidleys in the state, it seems likely that Thomas, the father of Michael, was the Thomas Gidley born about 1829 released from jail in February 1874 (the year of his death), by special authority. He had been sentenced to 2 years for perjury in the previous October and his residence was given as Beechworth. Confusingly, it also says in the Victoria Police Gazette, where his release was listed, that he was a native of Ireland. Is Cornwall close enough?! In the Physical Appearance column his broken nose was noted and his occupation was given as a squatter.
To return to his son, Michael Thomas Gidley, Michael left 2 or possibly 3 children. Ruth (Rubina) was born in 1879 to Florence Rowell before she married Michael Gidley in 1884. Michael was therefore possibly her stepfather, although she named Thomas [sic] Gidley as her father on the marriage certificate when she married Frederick Redfern in 1897.
Daughter Florence Henrietta Gidley was born in 1885 and married twice - to Robert James Rutherford and Andrew George Williams. 
Son Herbert Tweedale Gidley married Ellen or Helena Doyle in 1913 and has left Gidley descendants.
The Cornish Gidley tree has now increased by several names. Thomas Simmonds Gidley, whether he is really Nicholas Gidley and  known as Thomas after emigration, or a younger brother of his, would also be the brother of William S Gidley who emigrated to California, USA, from Cornwall at about the same time. Mining was big business in the USA and Australia and dying in Cornwall. It has been calculated that between 1861 and 1900 44.8% of Cornish males aged 15-24 had left for America and a further 29.7% left for other countries (Kim Baldacchio in the West Country Wanderings Seminar, 11 Nov 2017, reported in the Journal of One Name Studies v.13 (1) Jan 2018.).

3. John (probably more likely to be Samuel) Gidley, who died at Sandhurst (now Bendigo) 1st August, 1857.
John's inquest was the most dramatic. His treatment was barbaric by our standards. I thought blood letting went out long before the 1850s but poor John, who was suffering from chest pains, was bled twice, on consecutive days. His usual work was carting slabs in the mining camp. He retired to bed after being driven in a dray by a fellow miner to a local doctor, but gradually grew worse and died in great pain in the night. His wife Elizabeth had administered a jorum of ale with nutmeg and ginger. At this point one of the miner's wives, Cecilia Robbie, one of the women who gathered to help lay out the body, declared that the death was so sudden that the police should be called. It was debated at the inquest whether or not she had accused Elizabeth of poisoning her husband. Cecilia denied this, but Elizabeth stated that Cecilia appeared to be drunk when she made this accusation and she (Elizabeth) had ordered her out of their tent.
A second doctor was called to do a post mortem and his verdict was death by natural causes, namely pneumonia.
Update 2023: the name of the deceased in the official inquest verdict is given as Samuel Gidley. He also appears in the Victoria, Australia, Death Index, 1849-1991 on Ancestry as Samuel Gidley, where his father's name is given as Samuel Gidley and his mother as Jane. His age is about right to be the illegitimate son of Jane Gidley, baptised in Tormoham, Devon, England, who, possibly again, could be the daughter of John Gidley and Mary Gale of Marldon, Devon. Jane married William Stentiford in 1833.

4. Henry Gidley who died 11 May 1888 in Ballarat.
Henry was the victim of a hit-and-run accident - run over not by a car but a horse. Aged 68, he was employed by the owner of the Prince Regent Hotel on the Buninyong Road to put a label on the gate. No-one witnessed the accident, but the son of the hotel owner stated that he heard a horse galloping outside and someone shouting "Hey, hey". An unknown man then went into the hotel bar to report that a man was lying injured in the road. Henry was carried into the bar and laid insensible on a sofa. He had recovered slightly by the next morning and went to his tent about 50 yards away, refusing offers to send for the doctor, asking them to wait "until Monday morning". The next day he was taken to hospital where he lingered for a couple of days and was able to make a brief statement to the effect that a man on horseback had ridden over him as he was going home. There were no witnesses to the accident. Neither the man on the galloping horse nor the man who reported the accident were ever traced.
The inquest verdict was death by pleuro-pneumonia from injuries received in the accident.
This is another unknown Gidley. Henry's death is listed in the Australian Death Index on Ancestry, but unfortunately his father's name was listed as unknown. Obviously he had no family to register the death. I looked through my references for a Henry Gidley born about 1820, and no-one fits the bill. The only Henry whose date tallies is Henry Robert Gidley, son of Henry Gidley, a mason, and his wife Ann Symons, who was baptised in Plymouth in 1819. But I am fairly sure that this is the Henry who was killed in the Graig Mine in Aberdare in June 1850, when he accidentally fell into the coal pit. This Henry was a carpenter, as was Henry in Plymouth in the 1841 census.
The constable making the initial report to the inquest in Victoria wrongly named Henry as William (this was crossed out and Henry written in).

5. Julia Gidley who died 10 December 1881 at Kangaroo Flat.
This is the one I feel is the saddest. The verdict was "Syncope of the heart, brought on by the excessive use of intoxicating liquor in combination with want of proper nourishment and care and also exposure to cold".
One of the main witnesses was Edward Gidley, the deceased's schoolboy son, who with the other witness, the next-door neighbour, had tried to look after his mother in the days before her death. He knew she "was in the habit of drinking brandy and ale". The neighbour had also seen the deceased "frequently under the influence of liquor", and the doctor who attended her before her death said he knew her "habit of drinking brandy and ale". In fact the neighbour claimed that Julia blamed her last illness on "beer, beer".
Sadly, it was Edward who found his mother's body when he came in after playing outside. He had previously made her some soup, but she had been unable to take it and had thrown off all the bedclothes, the cause of the exposure.
Edward Gidley had been registered as Andrew Gidley at his birth in 1871, but was evidently known as Edward from an early age, after a baby brother Edward had died aged 7 or 8 months, in the same year as Andrew's own birth. By a sad twist of fate an inquest was also held on Andrew/Edward's own death in 1941 in Billabong Creek, Jerilderie, New South Wales. The verdict was "asphyxia from drowning", with a comment "but whether accidental or not, evidence does not disclose". He left no money. Edward was only 10 when he found his mother's body. There seems to be no sign of Julia's husband Edward living with her, although he didn't die until 1909 in Bendigo. They had 10 children, of whom 4 died as babies. Julia's husband, Edward Gidley the elder had been born in Bishopsteignton, Devon in 1839, and his whole family were early emigrants to South Australia in 1850. I have only traced them one further generation back - to Chudleigh in Devon.