A 94-year-old man died after setting himself on fire while he was lighting his pipe, an inquest heard.

The hearing was told that Robert William Rush suffered 45 per cent burns in the incident despite his wife of nearly 70 years, Mary, throwing a bowl of water over him to extinguish the flames.

Mr Rush, a retired pharmacist, was said to have limited sight and lit his pipe "virtually by feel."

And the hearing was told he would not have noticed if a match had broken when he struck it and landed in the folds of his shirt - the most likely cause put forward by the fire investigator.

In a statement read to the inquest, Mrs Rush told the couple had been married since 1938 and had lived at their address in Hodder Street, Accrington, for 42 years.

On the day of the fire she was in the kitchen when she heard Mr Rush call out.

When she went into the living room his clothes and the chair he was sitting in were on fire.

Mrs Rush returned to the kitchen and got a basin of water and threw it over her husband, extinguishing the flames. Mr Rush was taken to Royal Blackburn Hospital where he died the following day.

Aidan Fortune, of the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service, said the most likely cause of the fire was a broken match head.

He said there was a working smoke detector in the house but the fire had been extinguished so quickly no smoke had reached it.

The medical cause of death was given as burns injury and coroner Michael Singleton recorded a verdict of accidental death.