Mary Clues' Fiery Death

The Legend:
On the morning of March 2, 1772, 52-year-old Mary Clues of Coventry, England, was found burnt to death one morning in the bedroom of her ground-floor apartment. Her body had been reduced to ashes, and all that was still recognizable were her calcined skull and spine, along with her unburned legs, including one thigh.

My Earliest Source
The earliest account of this event I have at the moment is from the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (of London), dating from 1774 and written by B. Wilmer, a surgeon from the town of Coventry and an eyewitness of Clues' remains. Originally written by Wilmer in April, 1772, below are the details of the case as he gives them.
Mary Clues had always been a drinker, but after her husband died -- a year and a half before her own death -- she became a truely formidibly alcoholic, averaging a quart of rum a day for the year previous to her death at the age of 52. Her health had deteriorated to the point that since February of 1772 she was bed-ridden, and, because she now lived alone, she depended on the kindness of her neighbors to check in on her and help her do things; often, someone would sit up and watch over her at night. This did not keep her from drinking, and she "generally smoaked a pipe every night."
Clues typically slept on the edge of her bed that was close to the chimney, which was only three feet away. On the night of March 1, 1772, she had fallen out of bed and was unable to get up. She was discovered when her nextdoor neighbor, Mary Hollyer, stopped by to see her; with some difficulty, she managed to get Clues back up into her bed. Despite her neighbors insistence, Clues refused to have anyone stay and watch over her that night. The last person to see her alive was a man named Brooks, who had sat up with her before; he left the house at half past eleven, locking the door behind him. He had left two burning coals in the grate of the fireplace to warm Clues, and a "small rush-light in a candlestick" was left on a chair near the head of her bed.
At half past five on the morning of March 2, smoke was seen coming from the window of Clues' room; the door was broken down, and some flames in the room were quickly extinguished with a few buckets of water. Lying on the floor between the fireplace and the bed were the remains of Mary Clues.
Only her legs and one thigh were still intact; of the rest of her, nearly all soft tissue had been totally consumed. The bones were still there, but had been calcined and were covered with a whitish powder; enough connective tissue remained to hold the skull and vertebrae in place, but the bones of both arms had separated from the rest of the remains. Her skull was near the head of the bed and her legs near the bottom, and the curvature of her spine seemed to indicate that she had had her back next to the grate of the fireplace.
Once the flames had been extinguished, it was noted that the furniture in the room was largely undamaged, with the side of the bed near the body burned most... but all the bedding on top of the bed was unburned. Wilmer himself arrived to view the scene about two hours after Clues' remains had been discovered. He noted that the walls in the room had been coated black, and that the air was full of "a very disagreeable vapor", but past this he was impressed that not much other than Clues had been burnt. He assumed that she had again tumbled out of bed in the early hours of the morning, and that her night shirt had then been ignited by either the coals in the grate or the candle on the chair... and he feels that, once set fire to, "she was probaly soon reduced to ashes", presumably because "her solids and fluids were rendered inflammable, by the immense quantity of spirituous liquors she had drunk."
Of course, she may not have been consumed quickly, as Wilmer supposed; after all, around six hours had passed since Clues was last seen alive. Wilmer assumed for a relatively quick reduction of Clues to ashes statively because of the lack of damage to the rest of the room; but he also noted that the floor was made up of bricks, so the fire would have been hard pressed to spread out too far if Clues' body was not touching any other flammable objects. He may also have assumed a quick occurence because smoke was not noticed before five-thirty in the morning, but that does not mean that Clues hadn't been burning since much earlier and no one had noticed. In any case, there is no mystery as to what ignited the fire. Given Clues' inability to even stand up unassisted, she would have had no escape if her clothes caught fire.

Variations
Michael Harrison, in his book Fire From Heaven, claims that this event happened "only a few years" after 1744, and spells Clues' name as "Clewes". All that he actually says of the event is that Clues went up in smoke. He presents a quote to the effect that Clues was "of indifferent character, and much addicted to drinking"; Harrison does not say where he got this quote from, but word for word it comes directly from the Philosophical Transactions account above. If he had a copy of the account above, then it is strange that he spells Clues' name wrong and gets the date so far off. Perhaps he got his version of the story from a source I haven't seen, one that largely repeats the Philosophical Transactions details with differences. Or perhaps not.
Joe Nickell in Secrets of the Supernatural has an account of this event from George Henry Lewes' article "Spontaneous Combustion" (from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine #89 [April, 1861]). This account quotes a large part of the Philosophical Transactions account above, and Nickell's assessment of the situation is the same as I give above. In fact, the only variation he has is that, while stating that the medical man who investigated -- he doesn't mention Wilmer's name -- supposed that Clues' shift had caught fire either from "the candle on the chair or a coal falling from the grate," he then neglects to mention the same medical man supposed the caused to be spontaneous combustion. This is likely because Nickell is focused on disproving the idea of Spontaneous Human Combustion, so concentrated only on the physical description of the scene and what could be inferred from it.

Sources:

• Now available on Request.

See Also:

• General Article: Spontaneous Human Combustion