{"id":289614,"date":"2025-07-25T04:04:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T04:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/289614\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T04:04:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T04:04:13","slug":"tribute-to-police-officer-killed-by-lightning-in-birmingham-park-during-severe-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/289614\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribute to police officer killed by lightning in Birmingham park during &#8216;severe storm&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A tribute has been paid to a police officer who was killed when he was struck by lightning in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Birmingham;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Birmingham<\/a> park exactly a century ago today.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">PC William Thomas Corbett died when he was struck by lightning during a &#8216;severe thunderstorm&#8217; on July 24, 1925.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The 35-year-old was on duty in Edgbaston&#8217;s Calthorpe Park when he was hit by a thunderbolt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><b>READ MORE: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/uk.news.yahoo.com\/woman-fighting-her-life-selly-151830179.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:Woman fighting for her life after Selly Oak crash as hero locals rush to her aid;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>Woman fighting for her life after Selly Oak crash as hero locals rush to her aid<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"A general view of Calthorpe Park in Edgbaston\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"810\" height=\"539\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/b6d23a2a99a363a32a616d211952c2e5.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>A general view of Calthorpe Park in Edgbaston -Credit:Birmingham Mail\/Darren Quinton<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Sadly, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/all-about\/west-midlands-police\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:West Midlands Police;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">West Midlands Police<\/a> officer did not survive the unlucky blast.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">West Midlands Police Museum paid tribute to Mr Corbett today to mark the 100th anniversary since his death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/chat.whatsapp.com\/JcXF3MxQGZs3GoiEA8W2fn\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Get breaking news on BirminghamLive WhatsApp;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"><b>Get breaking news on BirminghamLive WhatsApp<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The museum, located in a Victorian cell block on Steelhouse Lane, wrote on social media platform X: &#8220;Today marks a century since the unfortunate passing of PC WIlliam Thomas Corbett.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;He was on duty in Calthorpe Park when he was struck by lightning during a severe thunderstorm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;A benefit concert was held in November of the same year for his family.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/newsletter-preference-centre\/?view=Solus&amp;mailingListId=67ec6fc9-65d2-4b0c-b55e-ee73660ce693&amp;utm_source=solusarticle\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Don&#039;t miss the biggest and breaking stories by signing up to the BirminghamLive newsletter here;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"><b>Don&#8217;t miss the biggest and breaking stories by signing up to the BirminghamLive newsletter here<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">X user &#8216;Azurespot&#8217;, paying their respects, wrote &#8220;RIP&#8221; underneath the post.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In 2017, the force was trying to<a href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/news\/midlands-news\/can-you-help-police-find-13926595\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:track down lost images of Mr Corbett;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"> track down lost images of Mr Corbett<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It was eventually successful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tribute has been paid to a police officer who was killed when he was struck by lightning&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,107948,10387,393,4884,107949,107946,16,15,7830,107947],"class_list":{"0":"post-289614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-calthorpe-park","11":"tag-edgbaston","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-mr-corbett","15":"tag-severe-thunderstorm","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-west-midlands-police","19":"tag-william-thomas-corbett"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}