Edward Brennan was very cold having just come off guard at the Armed Constabulary camp at Kihikihi on a June morning in 1873. To warm himself he began skylarking about with John Verner, wrestling with him in fun. But John, who had been cutting tobacco, had a penknife in his hand and when Edward fell forward, he was stabbed in the heart and died within minutes.
Edward, 29, had formerly belonged to the 18th Regiment Royal Irish, nicknamed Paddy’s Blackguards, which came to New Zealand in 1863. The Regiment was formed mainly of volunteers from the Irish Militia and was soon involved in skirmishes in Drury and surrounding areas of the North Waikato. Paddy’s Blackguards were the last regiment to leave New Zealand, in 1870, although some, like Edward, stayed and became part of the Armed Constabulary.
Edward and John were inseparable friends and John was greatly depressed by the loss of his mate. Great sympathy was felt for him. An inquest absolved him of any blame and returned a verdict of accidental death. Edward was buried at Hairini Catholic cemetery.
While danger was ever present on the battlefields, for these men it could also lurk within the relatively safe confines of daily life.
Ten years after Edward’s ‘melancholy accident’, Trooper James Neill, a bandsman in the Waikato cavalry corps, was marking the butts – mounds of earth on which targets are mounted – at the Te Awamutu rifle range.
The firing party consisted of seven men, and after one trooper missed the target, Bandsman Charles Alexander prepared to fire. No danger disc was visible and as it was unusual for the marker to leave the butts after a missed shot, he was assumed to be safely out of the way. After a short pause Charles Alexander fired. As soon as he did, he saw James Neill fall forward. He had been shot through the right shoulder. No one had seen him and no danger flag was waved. The firing party ran up to the target, and discovered all three danger discs still inside the marker’s butt.
The bullet had struck James and was supposed to be lodged in the left lung, as no point of exit was visible. James told his father that, thinking that he might discover where the previous shot had struck, he was coming out of the butts with a danger disc in his hand and when he was shot this disc fell back into the marker’s butt. The 34-year-old said he blamed no one. James lingered for three days and was attended to by Dr Blundell for shock before a fatal rheumatic delirium set in.
The inquest investigation was a most searching one and found that the danger flag having been stolen from the butts, a disc was substituted as a danger signal. The Coroner directed the attention of the jury to the definition of homicide by misfortune, pointing out that the evidence showed that the man who fired the fatal shot was doing a lawful act, and had no intention to hurt any person.
A verdict of accidental death was returned, and a rider added that no firing should be conducted without danger flags. Charles Alexander was held blameless. James was buried at Rangiaowhia cemetery with military honours.
In a curious coincidence his father, himself a member of the corps, had been accidentally shot at target practice some time before.
