On this day in Oxfordshire...

On this day in 1879, Joseph Bannister, a carpenter of Marsh Gibbon, was doing repairs under a cart shed on the farm of J Jones jun., of Blackthorn, when Joseph Jones (a son of the above gentleman) entered the yard with his gun. Perceiving a pigeon on the ridge of an outbuilding, he fired one barrel and missed, whereupon the pigeon made towards the shed where Mr Bannister was working. The second barrel brought the bird down, and although it fell some considerable distance from where Mr Bannister was working, it was evident that he, as well as the pigeon, had been shot.

The young farmer and his friends were much concerned and alarmed, and at once conveyed the injured man in their trap to Dr Drinkwater of Bicester, and from thence to his home. It was discovered that five shots had penetrated, though none of them very deep or in any vital part. On a subsequent visit, the doctor pronounced Mr Bannister to be on a fair way to recovery, and that he would soon be able to resume work.

Apparently Joseph Jones expressed great concern for the wounded man, and all agreed that the accident was not the result of recklessness in any way. The Bicester Herald claimed loftily that “the gun is apt to scatter the shots unusually wide, which it appears to have done on this unfortunate occasion."¹ 

Joseph Bannister did indeed make a full recovery. He died in Marsh Gibbon in 1898, at the age of 82.

A true story like this for every day in my books "On this day in Oxfordshire: volumes 1 and 2", available at Amazon.

1  Bicester Herald, 19th December 1879