Obituaries Australia

At an early hour this morning a shocking suicide was committed at the North Shore. Mr Thomas Whitton, brother of Mr John Whitton, the engineer in chief, blew his brains out with a double barrelled gun in his brother's garden, at St Leonards.

One of the servants was walking through the garden when he discovered Mr Whitton's dead body lying near one of the paths. The sight presented was a most horrifying one, as the top of the deceased's head seemed to have been blown clean away, and the blood and brains were scattered in various directions about the spot where he was lying. Near the place was found the deceased's own double barrelled gun, which appeared to have been only recently discharged. One of the deceased's fingers was blackened with powder. A short time previous to the discovery one of the servants of the house saw Mr Whitton going to a room in which his gun case was kept, and there appears no reason to doubt that the unfortunate man died by his own hand. The deceased was a single man, over 60 years of age. For some considerable time past he had suffered from bad health, and of late appeared very depressed in spirits, but there were no indications that he contemplated suicide.

The coroner held an inquest on the body this afternoon. The jury returned a verdict of suicide. The deceased, who was an artist by profession, had been very strange in his manner of late.