When people in public life fall out today, perhaps by making unpopular or offensive statements, or even over an affair of the heart, they can make amends or apologise but in past times the culprit was more likely to be challenged to a duel with chosen weapons based on a code of honour.  

Two hundred years ago, duelling was widespread, a confrontation between two men to settle a dispute, often with swords and later pistols. But the risk to life and limb was ever present and so the practice soon became illegal with the result that such encounters were held clandestinely at secret locations to avoid attracting the attention of the law although the authorities frequently turned a blind eye. 

Duels were fought not so much to kill the opponent as to gain satisfaction, that is to restore one's honour by demonstrating a willingness to risk one's life for it. The tradition of duelling was therefore reserved for the male members of the nobility although in later times it also extended to those of the upper classes.  

Many famous people from history fought duels including two prime ministers, William Pitt the Younger (1798) and the Duke of Wellington (1829), and in 1831, Charles Tennyson, uncle of the poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson, found himself in such a situation.  

In 1831, Tennyson, a landowner and politician, had been elected M P for Stamford, a constituency that included Bourne, after defeating Lord Thomas Cecil, son of the second Marquess of Exeter, of Burghley House, Stamford, in a particularly acrimonious contest and during a grand banquet to celebrate his victory, he made a speech denigrating Lord Thomas and calling him “a tyrant”, a reference to his family’s influence over Stamford for many generations.  

Lord Thomas took offence, claiming that Mr Tennyson had accused his family of “invading the rights of the people” and refuted the allegations during a speech at a public dinner in Stamford but Tennyson refused to withdraw them, resulting first in an exchange of letters and ultimately a duel with pistols. 

The confrontation was subsequently held at Wormwood Scrubs at six o’clock on the afternoon of Saturday 17th June where the two men gathered with their seconds, Lord Thomas Cecil being attended by Lord James Fitzroy and Tennyson by Sir William Ingilby, M P for the Lindsay division of Lincolnshire.  

Reporting the events that followed, a local newspaper said: “After exchanging shots, Sir William expressed himself satisfied on the part of Mr Tennyson and Lord James Fitzroy said that Lord Thomas Cecil was satisfied. The affair being thus terminated to the honour of all parties, a conversation ensued in which Mr Tennyson having expressed his regret that any expressions of his should have been painful to Lord Thomas Cecil’s feelings, expressed his hope that they would have no further cause of difference. He and Lord Thomas Cecil shook hands and the parties left the ground with the full understanding that all points of dispute were finally disposed of.” 

Because of the illegality of the encounter, the two duellists and their seconds were arrested by the police immediately after leaving the shooting ground and taken into custody, first to Paddington police station and then before a magistrate at Marylebone. Here, the court was told that the duel had already taken place and that the two parties were now reconciled and instead of being bound over to keep the peace, which would have been the usual procedure, the case was dismissed. 

Tennyson continued as M P for Stamford for another year and in 1832 he was elected as member for Lambeth where he remained until 1852 and he died in 1861, aged 77. 

Although duelling was mainly the province of the nobility and upper echelons of society, there were cases where men of a more lowly station became involved although such acts were regarded as the working class aping their betters and because of their unfamiliarity with weaponry, such instances often had dire results. 

In 1830, for instance, such a clash took place in Bourne on the banks of St Peter’s Pool, or Wellhead as it was then known, and although the encounter was shrouded in secrecy, word of the unfortunate outcome soon leaked out and caused a great deal of excitement and gossip in the inns and taverns around the town. 

The Wellhead in those days was an isolated spot without trees (as pictured above) and the protagonists were two chimney sweeps who had fallen out over something which we know not but on Saturday12th June they kept an arranged rendezvous on the banks of the pool “to settle an affair of honour in a polite way”, as they termed it, accompanied by two gentlemen from their own profession to act as seconds. 

On arrival, the ground was marked out and agreed and the necessary ceremonies observed, the men having chosen pistols to resolve their differences without bloodshed, the act of participating and firing a single shot in the direction of their opponent being sufficient for their satisfaction, and this is the way it would have ended but for the occurrence of an unforeseen accident. 

Pistols were expensive and hard to come by and so one of the duellists had borrowed his from a friend, a dealer in old iron, but had neglected to ascertain whether it was safe to use and having loaded it with sufficient charge to confound his antagonist with the loudness of the report, fired his shot but unfortunately the explosion burst the weapon which such force that he was knocked unconscious and his arm badly shattered. 

Immediate medical attention was required but the duellists had failed to provide themselves with a doctor, an essential requirement of the formal duel, and instead the injured man was taken to the Bourne workhouse to have his fractured limb set and the wound dressed while his opponent and both seconds were so alarmed at what had happened and in such fear of being apprehended by the law that they made a hasty exit. 

Duelling, however, was soon to fall out of favour. The last fatal encounter took place in England in 1852 and by the turn of the 20th century, the practice had largely died out mainly through public opinion rather than legislation.