Watchers for Aylesham Depradators

All below is taken from Dover Express and East Kent News for 16th August 1929

‘Snowdon Shooting Mystery

Did a dog fire the gun?

Watchers for Aylesham Depredators

In the early hours of Saturday morning last a young farmer of Ackholt farm, Nonington named Reginald William Clark, was found by his brother to be suffering from a gunshot wound in his chest, and considerable mystery surrounds the circumstances under which he met his death. It appears that the deceased who was sleeping with his brother in a tent on the farm, went to bed about 11.15am and the latter , on awakening at the report of a gun, found his brother lying in bed with a wound in the chest and he died soon after.

The inquest was held on Monday afternoon at Ackholt farm, Nonington, by the East Kent Coroner, Mr. W. Rutley Mowell. He was assisted by a jury of whom Mr. James Frederick Harlow was the foreman.

William Clark, of Ackholt farm, Nonington, father of the deceased, identified the body as that of his son Reginald William who lived with him. He was single, aged 23, and assisted witness on the farm as a tractor mechanic He last saw him alive at about 10.15 on Friday night last when he went to bed. The deceased and his brother had been sleeping in the tent since the previous Sunday in Ackholt wood, which was near his potato field, a quarter of a mile from the house.

The coroner:; Why did they do that?-Well, some of the inhabitants of Aylesham are good and the others are bad, and the bad ones are frequently crossing the farm and taking things and we have the tent there to protect the field.

Continuing, witness said the deceased also had a gun and his own Alsatian dog. The gun was to scare the rooks in the early morning and they usually fired about one shot. The gum belonged to the deceased and witnesses provided the cartridges. He did not know whether the deceased loaded the gun overnight. The deceased had nothing on his mind and was never worried.

Leslie Stuart Clark, 16 1/2 years, brother of the deceased, said he helped on the farm. On Friday he and his brother left the house for the tent at about 11 o’clock. The deceased opened the flap of the tent on arrival and went inside. He had he gun with him and he loaded it at the farm before going to the tent, as he sometimes did. There was an oil lamp in the tent, and in addition they had an electric torch. On Friday night the deceased lit the lamp. They secured the flap of the tent when they were inside, and the deceased put out the light. The dog was tied to the tent pole with a 7 ft. length of rope. He did not notice where the deceased put the gun when he got inside the tent, but he was awakened at about 1.30 by the sound of a gun being fired. He saw there was a light which proved to be a torch, under his brother’s right hand. He heard the deceased say “oh dear” three times and he called out to him. As there was no answer he got out of bed and shook him. He then saw the wound in his chest. The dog was on the bed near his feet and seemed to be licking either the paws or the head of the deceased. He found the gun lying at the foot of the bed with the muzzle pointing towards the deceased .He covered the deceased’s wound up so that the dog should not touch it and then opened the flap of the tent and ran down the house and told his father.’

By Mr. Mowlis? The bedclothes were turned back just enough to expose the wound. The dog was still secured to the post and the dog would certainly have given the warning had any body else entered the tent. He thought the string which secured he dog got round the hammer of the gun and when the deceased felt the dog move, he must have got up and reached for the gun, getting hold of the muzzle, and then the gun went off. There was a clock in the tent but he did not notice the time.

By one of the jury. The dog kept jumping on the bed and the deceased told the dog to get down.

By another juryman. On the previous Monday night the deceased had some words with some drunken miners who came from the Snowdon Men’s club at about 10pm.

The Juryman (Mr. Baledon): Do you think he had his gun loaded so that he could scare people away? - He might have had that in his mind.

Mr. Baledon: I think that was the idea, because we have this trouble with miners pilfering our stuff, and the first thing to do is to catch them. I suggest that the real reason why the deceased and his brother were up there was to scare off men and not rooks?

Mr. Clark: yes

By Supt. Lane: The gun was normally placed at the head of the bed. The deceased only had one cartridge, and he had never seen the deceased load the gun before.

Dr Gerald E. Bellamy said he first saw the body about 8 am the same morning and the deceased had then been dead about an hour. The body was still warm. A superficial examination only revealed the gunshot wound in the chest. He had also made a post mortem examination. In his opinion, he did not think the muzzle of the gun could have been nearer then two feet and not more then three feet away. The direction of the shot was slightly upwards, inwards towards the middle line of the body, and backwards into the sheet. The shot penetrated the heart and he found most of the pellets in the right ventricle. There were a few shots in one lung. Death was caused through gunshot wounds causing haemophagge. It was inconceivable that the wound was self inflicted.

The Coroner: that is a very important statement, and I do not think you quite mean it,- I would not say it was impossible.

You mean he could not have deliberately got into that position?- I mean it was not suicide.

The Coroner addressing the jury said they had heard all the material evidence. The deceased and his brother were in the tent obviously for the protection of their father’s crops. They took a loaded gun with them which was a very foolish thing to do, but they thought if they had a loaded gun it would scare the people if it were fired into the air. They went to bed and the rest of the story they had to take from the brother of the deceased. It was for them to say whether it was an accident, in fact there did not seem to be any direct evidence to indicate anything else, but the position was a curious one. The deceased was in the bed with the bedclothes down to the point of the wound, and the wound pointing right into his heart. It might if they took those facts alone point to suicide, but they were not the only facts. It was difficult to follow the theory that the gun went off accidentally, but they had the evidence of the doctor, who told them that suicide was out of the question. They could return a verdict of “accidental death” which meant misadventure, or they could return an open verdict which meant they did not know how it happened.

After retiring, the foreman said the jury wanted to see the tent and the coroner adjourned the inquest until tomorrow (Saturday)


I have the following weeks article on the conclusion of the inquest is here. Plus apple stealing in Aylesham- what this has to do with Reggies death, and how the apple stealing became historically significant.