The Warminster Herald, Saturday 12 January 1878, reported:
SAD GUN ACCIDENT.- On Thursday morning last, Thomas Adlam, a very steady and respectable young man, in the employ of Mr. Holton, landlord of the Ship and Punch Bowl Inn [Silver Street, Warminster], loaded, with a small charge of powder and shot, an old, rusty, and unsafe gun he had obtained possession of, and shot at a thrush in his master’s garden. The barrel burst, and literally shattered his left hand to pieces. The shock was very severe, besides the actual damage to the hand, as may well be supposed when we say that the gun barrel was a mass of fragments, and that the old stock was sent flying several yards from the unfortunate man.
Medical assistance was quickly provided, and it was deemed desirable that the poor man should at once be taken to the Cottage Hospital, which most excellent institution, although having among other patients a somewhat similar case to deal with (the foot instead of the hand), was prepared at once to receive him. The united medical skill of the town, freely given, as at all cases at the hospital, will be devoted to his case, and we trust the poor fellow will pull through.