On this day in Oxfordshire...

ON THIS DAY in November 1886, two workmen, John Wytham, 53, and John Giles, 18, were repairing the roof of farmer Frederick Guy’s house in West Street, Chipping Norton. Recently-married Christopher Lipscomb, 21, of the Chequers Inn at Churchill came bowling along the street when suddenly his horse shied and crashed into the ladder upon which young Giles was standing. Giles shouted a warning and grabbed on to the guttering, but it immediately gave way. He dropped to the ground and the ladders fell on top of him. Wytham, who was working from another ladder attached to the first one by a cord, was violently jerked from his position. He rolled down the slates and plummeted twenty to thirty feet down to the road, landing with a heavy thud on his chest. He banged his head and broke an ankle.

Giles sustained severe bruising to his head, legs and feet as a result of the ladders falling on him, but thankfully no bones were broken. With assistance, he even managed to walk to his home next door to Mr Guy’s. Wytham, on the other hand, was so badly injured that the attending doctor offered little hope of his recovery. How would the future turn out for him – and for Christopher Lipscomb?

A shocking sequel to this incident unfolded in the following summer, and Lipscomb’s horse was once more in the thick of the action. Christopher and his pregnant wife, Ada, were enjoying a drive between Salford and Cornwell in a trap. The road passed through a succession of gated fields and, upon arriving at the last gate on to the turnpike road, Lipscomb handed the reins to his wife and jumped down. Somehow Mrs Lipscomb pulled the wrong rein and the horse turned towards the bank, whereupon poor Ada was pitched out, landing on her head. (Carriage accidents wherein the lady was driving were invariably reported as the fault of the fluffy-headed female; where the gentleman was driving, an accident was usually blamed on a flighty horse.) Suffering from internal bleeding, Ada was taken unconscious to her father’s home at Lower Mill in Chipping Norton where she died a few days later, aged 26. Baby Ada was born safely and went to live with her mother’s family.

Lipscomb joined up with the 2nd Battalion the Coldstream Guards and served in south Africa. Upon his return he went back to the business that he had adorned before taking on the Chequers: butchery. He married again and had another family, but he died an alcoholic in 1907, aged 42.

On a happier note, John Wytham worked for the rest of his life as a slater and plasterer, finally describing himself as “retired” in the 1911 census. He died in February 1913 aged 80.