It was a cold wet Monday in early October when 21-year-old medical student Douglas Ward rode from his home at Shaw Hill in Upper Saltley to team up with his old friend Richard Turner Chattock. The two had arranged for a day’s hunting. In 1858 both Shaw Hill and Castle Bromwich were areas of Warwickshire countryside where well-to-do young gentlemen found sport shooting the abundant wildlife of the woods and fields.
Richard Chattock was descended of an old Castle Bromwich family but now lived with his parents in Kentish Town, London where his father Edward Turner Chattock was a merchant in iron and tinplate. The two had come up to Castle Bromwich on a visit to Edward’s uncle Thomas Chattock who lived at Hay Hall.
With farmer’s son, John Powell and another friend, they set out to hunt rabbits.
The weather was cold, damp and miserable and at the end of the day the four huntsmen had managed to bag only a single rabbit and decided to make their way home.
Douglas Ward led the way back home. Richard Chattock followed on behind wiping his double-barrelled flintlock shotgun with his handkerchief. As he put the handkerchief back in his pocket, the gun went off, the shot hitting Ward square in the middle of his back. The medical student fell to the ground senseless. In panic Chattock dropped his gun, then picked it up and threw it over the roadside hedge.
The two other companions ran up to help their friend but so great was his pain that he could not bear to be touched. A farm gate served as a make-shift stretcher and they gently carried the injured man to the Bradford Arms nearby. During the whole episode no-one had spoken a word.
Surgeon Henry Bailey of Coleshill was sent for. He arrived to find Douglas Ward lying on his face in great pain: “I am dying, Bailey. Good bye.” Ward blamed no one for the accident and shook hands with Chattock. The latter asked for forgiveness which was freely given. Several hours after the incident ward expired in the presence of his friends.
The inquest was held at the Bradford Arms under the chairmanship of the district coroner, Mr W S Poole, with well-respected local schoolmaster John Blewitt as foreman of the jury.
Evidence was given by John Powell, by Thomas and Edward Chattock, by Mr Bailey and by Richard Turner Chattock himself. He was so overcome with emotion he could barely be heard. He expressed his very deep regret at having been the cause of his friend’s death.
Coroner Poole said he would not add to Richard Chattock’s distress by making the inquiry longer than necessary and recommended to the jury that a verdict of Accidental Death would be appropriate. He expressed the view that in this case the innocent cause of the fatal accident was as much to be pitied as the victim.
Douglas’s grave can be seen in Castle Bromwich graveyard opposite the church of St Mary & St Margaret where his funeral service was conducted by the priest in charge, Rev Edwin Kempson. The grave lies not far from the main gate on the right hand side.
Notes:
Douglas Ward lived at Shaw Hill House in Upper Saltley which still stands. Built in the mid-18th century, it still lay in countryside far from the industrial town of Birmingham one hundred years later when Douglas met his sad end. The Ward family, after whom the district of Ward End is named, had lived in the area since the Middle Ages.
Likewise, the family of Richard Chattock who could also trace his ancestry back in this area to medieval times when an ancestor built a house within a moat near the River Tame at Bromford.
Acknowledgements: This article has been developed from research by Terrie Knibb and the Castle Bromwich Youth & Community Partnership. For more information about the Castle Bromwich Graveyard Project go to http://castlebromwichgraveyard.co.uk/.
Images
A Birmingham flintlock gun of the kind that would have been used by Richard Chattock, manufactured probably by or for Matthew Boulton c.1791. Image copyright of Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery on Flickr and reusable under a non-commercial sharealike Creative Commons licence.
Hunting for rabbits from ‘Confessions of a Poacher’ 1890 by an anonymous author.
The Ward family tomb in Castle Bromwich graveyard. Image by William Dargue, reusable under a non-commercial sharealike Creative Commons licence.
Leave a Reply