Bigamy or Mistaken Identity?

Doris had heard that her grandfather had died young in a work-related accident and wondered if her grandmother had married twice to a man called James, both sons of a Thomas. Had one James “gone off to commit bigamy? We were always told that our grandfather, James, died when the children were all still young, of cancer of the throat or face caused by his occupation as a coal miner. I’m left wondering which James was my grandfather… ”

The reasons were understandable as family records showed that a James was a coalminer born 1883 in Burnley when he married the grandmother of Doris and another was a master paper hanger and decorator who died in 1919 aged 49, so was born in 1870.

We eventually determined that there was only one James and he was born in 1871. Instead of being 24 when he married he was actually 36. The censuses and many other records were all consistent so how could this be explained? Either a mistake was made on his marriage certificate or he understated his age for a more respectable age gap of 2 years instead of 14. His bride could not sign her name so presumably would not have noticed this sleight of hand. This was certainly not a unique case, brides and grooms using poetic licence over the years in equal measure. By the time he died, his widow knew James’ true age.

We discovered that James became a master paper hanger and was indeed a coalminer before he married. His family could be traced to various homes in Burnley and to their cotton industry past.
So what about the family’s belief that the cancer was caused by coal mining? Our conclusion was that he was killed by wallpaper and paint.

The vivid green used in Victorian wallpaper was derived from toxic copper arsenite and some paints were also very toxic.
As a paper hanger, he would have been in regular contact with lead-based paints and vivid wallpaper containing arsenic. This deadly chemical caused epithelioma of the face which is a type of malignant tumour arising from the skin of the face.