The burning of Grace Pett

On the morning of 10 April 1744 in Ipswich, the daughter of Grace Pett found her mother burnt on the hearth. A report in the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions describes the scene.

The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society printed an account of Grace Pett of Ipswich in 1744. It says her daughter slept beside her and woke early on the morning of 10 April 1744, with her mother gone. The daughter hurried downstairs, frightened, and found Grace Pett lying part on the hearth and part on the floor of deal.

The account lists what the fire had left alone. The grate held no fire. The candle had burnt out in its holder, which stood by her. Beside her lay a child's clothes, with a paper screen on her other flank, and fire had spared both. The floor showed no singeing or discolouring, and the daughter's account says her mother's feet and ankles looked unhurt. The account attributes the fire in her body to some inward cause.

A letter that an English journal printed in 1800, which Strange History discusses, repeats the story and dates it to 10 April 1744. In that letter the daughter says her mother had on only a cap, shift, cotton gown, petticoat, stockings and shoes, with nothing else over them. The letter's writer judged that clothing too little fuel to turn a body to ashes by natural means.