On Saturday 25th April 1914, two Blantyre men, not particularly fond of one another decided to settle their difference in a Burnbank Pub. Differences that were to be settled with gunpowder!
Shortly after six o’clock, when the bar in Burnbank was filled with customers, a loud explosion attracted the attention of everybody there to some Polish men sitting together in the corner the bar. Blood was then observed around their bodies, at least two of the men clearly injured. One had a severe wound over the left eye and the other suffered from an injury on the right hand.
The police were summoned, but a careful search of that part of the bar where the explosion occurred failed to reveal any evidence as to the nature of the explosive used, and no damage was discovered further than the injuries of the two men.
Charles Green, Springwells, Blantyre, the Pole who was injured on the eye, was subsequently removed to the Eye Infirmary, Glasgow, while the police after some inquiries and it becoming known they had been quarrelling, arrested the other Polish man , Andrew Bobbin, Baird’s Bows, Blantyre.
Bobbin was brought the Magistrate at Hamilton on Monday, and was remanded in charge of assaulting Green by setting off gunpowder or other explosive cartridge and placing the same or against Green in such position as to deliberately burn him on the face to the serious injury of his person.
It’s unlikely we’ll know for sure what happened or what they’re disagreement was about, but being serious enough to involve gunpowder, I’m willing to bet it was over money, a love interest, jealousy or a mixture of all three!
