Visitors by Appointment Only, Please

Posted on 26th October 2026

Among my possessions, inherited through at least three generations of the family, I have this small newspaper cutting. I found it among my late father’s things; since his maternal grandmother came from Oxfordshire I guessed she must have cut it out, presumably because she knew the person detailed in it. Though I know precious little of my forebears, I was sufficiently intrigued by its contents to keep it myself.

For the benefit of those of you who find the old cutting difficult to read, and, more to the point, so a Google search may allow someone who knows more about the matter may one day come across it and comment, I have given a transcription below.

SUDDEN DEATH.—A man, named William Alfred Faulkner, of Coombe, thirty-six years of age, died suddenly during Friday night. He left home on Friday at 8.30 p.m., and went to Woodstock to see a young woman, named Emma Clark, to whom he was engaged to be married. He stayed, with her, at her home, till 11.10, when he wished her good night at the door, and she never saw him alive again. They parted good friends and he was then in good health and spirits. His father and mother went to bed about 11.30, leaving the back door unlocked for him to get in, but they did not hear anything of him, either on entering or during the night. The next morning his mother got up at six o'clock and prepared his breakfast, as usual, and as he did not go down, she went to his room and found him dead in bed. Nothing was disturbed, but everything was just as she expected to find it. Mr. Mair, surgeon, of Woodstock, examined the body, and found no appearance whatever of death having been caused by violence, but could not form any opinion as to the immediate cause. The inquest was held on Monday, before Mr. Westell, when the verdict of “Died from the visitation of God” was returned.

I was fascinated by the coroner’s verdict, and its implications, for I realised that one of my ancestors must have known someone who had been visited by God Himself – not so much a personal call, it must be admitted; more a matter of business, but all the same, it must count for something. After all, while many people remark casually of having spoken to God, how many of them claim to have been paid a visit by Him?

But why, I wondered, had God visited him? Or rather, why did God smite him, as I believe the preferred expression is? Had he committed the sin of Onan, or was it something special – something demanding God’s individual attention?

I was rather let down when a relatively superficial search of the internet showed me the reality of the situation. Death from the visitation of God was a routine affair up until around the end of the nineteenth century. He visited an awful lot of people in fact – at least if the coroner’s courts are to be believed.

Disappointed though I was by the lack of uniqueness of the case, I could not help but wonder something. For centuries coroners and insurance companies had happily held God culpable for no end of killings and calamities, or ‘Acts of God’, as the latter casually describe them. It would be comforting to believe that on the Day of Reckoning, these people will stand before God, and be asked by Him: ‘Why did you blame me for this?’, and will have to account for themselves.

I did actually find one curious exception to the rule, though it was admittedly in a novel. It comes from Two Knapsacks, by John Campbell (1892):

Some of the jurymen wished to bring in a verdict of ‘Died from the visitation of God,’ but this the Squire, who was foreman, would not allow. He called it flat blasphemy; so it was altered to: ‘Died by the explosion of illicit spirits, through a fire kindled by the wife of the principal victim.’

It’s encouraging to find that there are some people – even if only fictional ones – with a proper sense of attributing responsibility.