It was Monday 31st August 1903. It was late afternoon and Phyllis and Helen, two girls age 11 and 14, were playing on a swing in the small back garden of the three story red brick house terraced house in Nottingham, they called home. It was a pretty ordinary day, but things were about to change when a voice called out, ‘now I’ve got you.’ Phyllis and Helen looked up to see a boy in the top window of the house which backed onto theirs. The two properties were separated by a 10 foot wall. The girls could see that the boy had something bright in his hand and he was loading something into it. When he had finished, he, pointed the item out of the window and pulled a trigger. A bullet hit the cycle shed in the girls’ garden.
In a state of panic, the girls got off the swing and headed towards the house which was located on the opposite side of the yard to the cycle shed. They had the good sense to walk backwards so they could keep an eye on the young shooter, a 15 year old called William. But as they did so, the two girls could see that their assailant was reloading his weapon, a pistol, and before they reached the back door he shot once more, this time hitting Phyllis in the right thigh. It tore through her dress.
‘Oh, I’m shot!’ Phyllis cried out.
Phyllis was carried into the house. Her bleeding wound was seen to by Dr Lockhart. The bullet had passed through the dress and out the other side of her leg leaving a 1 ½ inch wound. Luckily, it had missed her muscles and as a result she was not seriously injured. Helen found the bullet in the yard by the kitchen door and handed it to the police. It was Inspector Mardlin who dealt with the case. He visited the girls’ house, then went to see William. Upon being told that a little girl had been shot from a window of the house, the boy silently handed a toy pistol and a box of 11 cartridges to Mardlin.
William was charged with firing with intent to do grievous bodily harm and appeared twice at the magistrates court where he was remanded on bail. By the time of the third hearing which took place at the Guildhall in September the charge had been changed to ‘unlawfully and viciously wounding.’ Helen and Phyllis were both called as witnesses and testified to what happened. William was also cross-examined. He explained that he had got the pistol off a friend at school on the day of the shooting, had stopped to buy some cartridges on the way home, and when going up to his room to get some books decided to test the gun out of the landing window.
‘Why?’ he was asked.
‘For sport,’ William relied.
William had seen the two girls playing on the swing and thought he would scare them by firing the pistol and making a noise. When they heard him speak, he said, ‘I’ll make you move,’ not ‘now I’ve got you.’
Acting for the prosecution, Mr Young asked the boy why he continued to shoot once he had succeeded in frightening the girls away. William explained that he had a lot of cartridges to shoot. Dr. Berryman, acting for the defence, told the court that there was no denying that William had shot Phyllis, but there was clearly no malice in what the boy had done. He had no ill feeling towards the girls when the incident happen and there was no motive; just a boy shooting a toy pistol for his own amusement.
William had character witnesses who corroborated that William was a boy who behaved impeccably and was a responsible pupil teacher at a local school and was from a good family. Because of this, Berryman tried to strike a deal with the court; William’s father he said, would donate to a local children’s hospital and compensate the girls’ father with whatever he wanted and a trial could be avoided.
The court adjourned the case to consider the offer of the counsel.
The trial continued on 21 January 1904 in front of 25 jurors, the Foreman, the Recorder, Mayor, Sheriff and Under Sheriff. It was a short session because no evidence was offered against the defendant as ‘due reparation for what was simply an act of stupid folly’ had been received and the Jury were instructed to find William ‘not guilty.’ However, the case was used as a warning about the indiscriminate use of firearms. Summing up the Recorder,
Hoped that the Pistol Protection Act, or whatever it was called, would learn all young fellows about Nottingham and elsewhere that they must not go firing pistols off in an indiscriminate way. The defendant might have seriously injured the girl, or even killed her, but, fortunately she was alright again.
The Pistol Protection Act 1903 was the first legislation for gun control in the UK. It banned anyone under the age of 18 from purchasing a firearm and introduced licensing. The legislation was enacted one month before Phyllis was shot and the resulting court case was the first occasion that it had been used in a British court. In this case it was used as a warning to young people, not as an instrument to obtain a conviction. William was found not guilty by the Jury as instructed.
Phyllis and Helen were my Great Grand-Aunts and I came across the story in old newspapers via the British Newspaper Archive. Researching family trees can be a great way to research social history – in this case, an unexpected journey into the first firearms legislation in the UK!
Ref: Long Eaton Advertiser, 18 September 1803, 2; Nottingham Evening Post, 21 January 1904, 5;
Images: Image of a young Edwardian Girl from Pixabay.co.uk. Please note that this is NOT an image of Phyllis or Helen but a representation; Nottingham Guild Hall; Edwardian Toy gun from Antiques.co.uk.
History Haze: Independent History Researcher 