Departures of note

Adolphe de Werdinsky, who also went by Dr. David Beck, died in Kingston upon Hull on 22 September 1856, aged 53, in a state of abject poverty. His death was attributed to heart and lung diseases, exacerbated by starvation, a fate he had tried to conceal from visitors and neighbours. A tombstone erected in his memory in Hull General Cemetery in 1857 bears the inscription 'Count de Werdinsky'.

Werdinsky's life was marked by a series of disputed claims and legal troubles. He presented himself as a displaced Polish nobleman and former officer under Józef Bem, but his status was questioned by other Polish refugees. In 1835, a public caution was published in The Times, alleging he had falsely collected subscriptions for Polish exiles. He was imprisoned for debt in 1837, and in 1844 was found bankrupt during a trial where he was accused of defrauding Esther Elizabeth Atlee of £2000 by misrepresenting himself and winning her affections.

He was also involved in multiple cases of violence against women. These included a charge of sexual violation of a twelve-year-old girl in 1844, an assault on a female servant in 1845, and a charge of beating his adopted daughter, Mary Ann Richards, in 1850, for which a true bill was found in 1851. He also faced an indecent assault charge in 1835, which was dismissed as a case of impersonation.

In addition to his personal conduct, Werdinsky pursued an invention for an engine powered by gun-cotton, which he claimed could run on a thread of material no larger than ladies' sewing-cotton. The invention was never built, and his claims were met with scepticism in the Mining Journal and satirised in Punch. After moving to Hull around 1855, he attempted to work as a German teacher and briefly as a locum tenens, but was unsuccessful, and he died in obscurity.