Pistols at dawn

In 1807 England was at war with Napoleon.

In the graveyard of St Laurence’s Parish Church in Stroud, Gloucestershire a plain stone carries the inscription:

Here lie the remains of Lieutenant Joseph Francis Delmont, of His Majesty’s 82nd Regiment, born November 25, 1785, died August 18, 1807.

On August 14th 1807 Delmont and Lieutenant Benjamin Heazle fought the last recorded pistol duel in England. A (relatively) recent article in Stroud’s local paper by Dave King describes the duel and the events leading up to it: Stroud – the venue for England’s last pistol duel, [Stroud News & Journal, 21 Nov, 2009]

The article makes for fascinating reading about events more than 200 years ago. Whether or not it was in fact the last pistol duel in England, duelling of any sort eventually died out and the last duel fought on English soil is believed to have been in 1852.

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Watch out! Costs About!

A Salutary Tale of Disclosure Obligations

Not everything in this blog is intended to be light hearted, as I found myself saying the other day. A kindly soul who had expressed approval of and interest in the blog had caused me to explain that there was intended to be a partly serious side to my musings as well as a bit of fun. So for those of you who only want to be mildly entertained, you should not read any further!

Actually, I rather hope you will read on, because litigation lawyers might have missed a recent decision which is relevant to everyone who conducts litigation in this jurisdiction.

British & Irish Legal Information InstituteI have to admit that I am a new convert to the webpages of the British and Irish Legal and Information Institute www.bailii.org.  The website is a veritable mine of information about recent cases, and what I like is that, at a click of not very many buttons, you can find a table of recent cases with very fast hyperlinks to judgments in cases which may be of interest.

I had been looking for the judgment in a recent case with a very different subject matter (and nothing to do with e-disclosure!) which had been reported in the newspapers last week, when my eye alighted on a case several places up the list of latest cases. I had stumbled across a judgment of His Honour Judge Simon Brown QC dated 8th October 2009 in the case of Earles v Barclays Bank PLC .

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