Take heed! Britain’s first fatal car accident, Harrow, 1899

En route to the boozer before Saturday’s Championship play off final at Wembley, I passed this plaque on a wall in Grove Hill, Harrow on the Hill.

The roadside plaque (unveiled on 25 February 1969) records the site of Britain’s first fatal road accident, on 25 February 1899.

The dead driver was 31-year-old engineer Edwin Sewell, whose 6HP Daimler crashed into a wall after a rear wheel collapsed following a rim breakage.

Sewell died instantaneously, while his passenger, Major Richer, was thrown from the vehicle and suffered such serious injuries that he died three days later in hospital.

Take heed, indeed.

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