Norfolk Newspapers -

Norwich Mercury

Extracts from Saturday February 8th 1879

Baconsthorpe

[Transcription copyright © Brian Hastings]

FATAL GUN ACCIDENT - An inquest was held on Tuesday by W. H. Scott, Esq., Deputy Coroner, at the Rectory, Town Barningham, on the body of George Newstead, servant of the Rev. E. J. Harper. Deceased on Monday last accompanied a young gentleman named Cairnes Eckford Daniell, a pupil of the Rev. Harper's, to shoot. Mr Daniell had loaded the gun, which was double-barrelled pin fine breach loading, and in coming to a fence, the deceased got upon the ditch with his left foot on the top of it and his right foot half-way down of it. Mr. Daniell handed him the gun, both barrels being cocked, and proceeded three or four yards to get over the fence, in another place. In his evidence he said he saw deceased slip down into the ditch, and the gun was discharged but how he did not know, he ran to deceased and found that he was wounded at back of right shoulder near the joint, the whole charge having entered the chest from the back. William Everitt, of Baconsthorpe, farmer, said he saw Mr. Daniell and deceased to a field and saw Mr. Daniell stoop as if to pick up a rabbit, instead of which he held the deceased up in his arms having lifted him out of the ditch. He then called to me, and witness saw deceased with his face in blood, making a noise, with blood in his mouth. Deceased was quite dead. George Barton, gamekeeper to Samuel Hoare, Esq., in that part of the Hanworth Estate, where the accident occurred, gave similar evidence, and stated that Mr. Daniell told him how the accident had happened, which agreed with Mr. Daniell's evidence. The deceased bore a most excellent character, and we regret to say that he had left a widow with six young children. Verdict "That the deceased was accidentally killed by the discharge of a gun that he was carrying".

See also Other Extracts from Norfolk Newspapers.

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Copyright © Pat Newby
October 2003