Now, before we start this feature, there are a couple of interesting points that need clarifying, the first concerning which was actually the last duel fought in England, as a number of Portsmouth-oriented websites tell us that it took place in Gosport, in 1845.

However, in researching for this piece, I discovered a ve-ery interesting fact: the last duel fought on English soil took place at Old Windsor on October 14th 1852, in a part of the Beaumont estate off Priest Hill. Both participants were French, a formal naval captain named Cournet and a civil engineer named Bartlemey.

Cournet died of his wounds and Bartelemy was arrested by the Metropolitan Police, and charged with murder, but got off with a short sentence for manslaughter.

But, whilst these facts mean that the 1845 Gosport duel was not the last to be fought on English soil, it was the last to be fought in England between two English men.

The second interesting fact has come from my attempts to discover when dueling was finally made illegal in this country - in fact, dueling has been illegal since it started, sometime around the fifteenth century and any death resulting from a duel in England has always been treated as murder - although good lawyers could often get their clients off with convictions for a lesser offence, as in Bartelemy's case.

But, we're here to talk about Portsmouth and the immediate area, so let's turn the clock back to the late spring of 1845, and head first to Southsea, where all the trouble first started ...

Duelling was seen as the resort of true gentlemen in settling a matter of honour ...

In the 1840s, the stuffy old Assembly Rooms in Southsea provided a focal point for the gathering of assorted officers of the navy, army and Royal Marines, together with their wives and girlfriends and assorted other family members.

Generally speaking, the regulars who gathered there did so because the pubs around the town were

usually frequented by "other ranks" and various civilian "undesirables" and were not considered fit places to take a respectable lady.

By and large, apart from the odd musical evening, or celebratory dance, the atmosphere in the Assembly Rooms was pretty dull - and filled with smoke, but many considered it "the place to go" and so it was usually pretty crowded.

Into this clique, around the beginning of 1845, wandered a certain Captain Alexander Seton, late of the 11th Hussars, a good-looking young fellow, whose portly stature was more than compensated for by his cheery disposition - and the fact that he was also pretty well off!

This gallant cavalry man was married, but that did not stop his roving eye, and he became very popular among many of the ladies, especially one lady who seemed to have taken his eye the most, Mrs Hawkey, wife of a Lieutenant of Royal Marines.

Very soon, not content with simply sharing Mrs Hawkeys society at the Assembly Rooms, Captain Seton began calling on her, whenever her husband was absent with his duties, at her lodgings, at the house of Mrs Stansmore, at No 2, King's Terrace.

Giving evidence to the Coroner later, Mrs Hawkey stated that Seton repeatedly offered her presents, which she refused, but that she never informed her husband of this.

However, in such a "closed" society, tongues wagged at private tea parties and officers' messes and finally word of Seton's attention to his wife reached the ears of Lieutenant Hawkey.

The young Marine officer was not at

all pleased, obviously and when he confronted his wife, despite her protestations of innocence, he forbade her to associate with Seton again.

As the spring moved on, the "season" at the Assembly Rooms

became more active, with a number of special musical evenings on the programme - most especially, a line regiment located in the garrison had received new colours, and the event was celebrated by the officers of the favoured corps with a series of entertainments of an excellent nature.

Mrs Hawkey, who was a regular attendee at such events, was present one evening when Captain Seton entered and, despite the warning her husband had given her, took part in a set of quadrilles, in which she foolishly partnered the... ex-cavalryman.

When the dance was over, Hawkey confronted Seton and demanded to talk with him; there followed a bitter confrontation, with raised voices, during which Hawkey called Seton a blackguard, a scoundrel and a rascal and demanded a meeting

between the two, or else he would horsewhip Seton the length of the High Street. Seton protested his innocence and demanded to know why Hawkey was so angry, but was met with more abuse and, shortly afterwards, as he made his way to the refreshment room, Hawkey kicked him.

The challenge was at length accepted by Seton, who chose for his second Lieutenant Bowles, RN., while Hawkey's friend was Lieutenant Pym, R.M. Both were very young men and in fact, Lieutenant Savage, of the Royal Marine Artillery, remonstrated with Hawkey for having selected so youthful a second.

In the early part of the 20th of May, the day of the duel, Hawkey purchased a pair of hair-trigger duelling pistols, at Fiske's, the Silversmith, in the High Street and had themdelivered to Sherwood's shooting gallery at 64, High Street.

George Powell, Sherwood's assistant, was present while Hawkey practised in the gallery and loaded the pistols for him. Hawkey, making a particularly good sho, turned to Pym and said: "It's a d-d good pistol," and measuring the distance said: "T-that would have done." He then marked the pistol with his pencil, Pym being present all the time.

Browndown, a secluded common on the Gosport side of the Hampshire shore, was fixed upon for the meeting, as the place most likely to be free from interruption and both participants and their seconds left Portsmouth.

Hawkey and his second went by way of Gosport. Seton and his friend proceeded there across the harbour, in a wherry (oar-powered small ferry boat) engaged for the purpose. John Smith, the owner of the boat, said later that he (Seton) was "as cool and collected as if he had been going to a picnic instead of a duel."

Arrived at the ground, the two seconds seemed hurried and flustered, and commenced proceedings by measuring out fifteen paces. Pistols were then put into the hands of the two principals, and as the May sun began to dip towards the horizon, the word was given to fire.

Seton's bullet missed his antagonist, while Hawkey's pistol, placed in his hand at half-cock by his youthful and obviously inexperienced second, did not go off. In many a previous similar situation, that would have been it - honour was satisfied and everyone could have gone home.

This, however, was not being acted out like the "traditional" duels of old and without any attempt to arrange matters in a more gentlemanly fashion, a second shot was demanded by Hawkey, upon which they both reloaded and fired again.

Seton's bullet again missed, but the ball from Hawkey's pistol struck Seton on the right hip bone, from where it travelled around the belly and came out by the left groin.

Hawkey, without waiting to see the nature of Seton's wound, exclaimed: "I'm off to France!" - and hurriedly rushed from the ground with his second following hot on his heels.

The amount of blood from the wound was terrible and two surgeons, Messrs Jenkins (no, still not a relation!) and Mortimer, were summoned from Gosport, but their attempts to staunch the bleeding were not very successful.

A shutter was taken down from a cottage window, and the injured man was carried to a yacht called theDream, lying off Stokes Bay, in which he was brought to Portsmouth and landed at the Quebec Hotel.

Dr. Stewart, Surgeon, of Portsmouth, was then sent for to act in consultation with the other medical men. Everything possible was done to stop the bleeding, but with only partial success.

It was at length deemed necessary that an operation should be performed, namely, that of tying the iliac artery, and Mr. Liston, an eminent surgeon, was sent for from London for that purpose.

The operation was most successfully performed by Liston, notwithstanding the very great difficulty which he experienced on account of the stout nature of his patient and it seemed that the patient was on the way to a full recovery.

However, after a while Seton started to show adverse symptoms - quite probably from blood poisoning - and no amount of nursing care had any positive effect.

Mrs Seton remained by her fading husband's side throughout and Mrs Hale, the hostess of the Quebec Hotel (pictured above) acted the role of nurse and comforter to perfection, but all to no avail.

As it became obvious that Seton was dying, the Reverend J. P. Mc Ghie was sent for to administer spiritual consolation to him and Mr. Minchin, a local solicitor, was brought in to draft his last will and testament; the dying man fought against the infection to the last and sadly died a protracted death, a terrible way for anyone, let alone such a young man to go.

A Coroner's inquest was summoned by W. J. Cooper, Coroner for the Borough, which met at the Town Hall, with a Mr W. Grant as the foreman of the jury.

In the course of the examination it transpired that a Mr. John Lewis Towne, of Elm Grove, Southsea, heard Hawkey say in Green Row, Portsmouth, alluding to a gentleman present, whom he believed to be the deceased: "That he would shoot him as he would a partridge," also the evidence of Sherwood's assistant, Powell, relative to the incident of the marked pistol on the morning of the duel.

It was also alleged that Hawkey threatened

Seton on one occasion, when he found him at his lodgings in company with his wife - but that evidence now seems to have been decidedly suspect.

After a very protracted inquiry, the jury found the following verdict: " We find that the immediate cause of the death of the deceased James Alexander Seton was the result of a surgical operation, rendered imperatively necessary by the imminent danger in which he was placed, by the infliction of a gun shot wound which he received on the 20th of May last, in a duel with Lieut. Henry Charles Moorhead Hawkey, of the Royal Marines.

"We therefore find a verdict of wilful murder against the said Lieut. Henry Charles Moorhead Hawkey and Lieut. Pym, as well as all the parties concerned in the duel."

A warrant for their committal to stand trial at Winchester, was made out, but the implicated persons did not surrender until the Winchester assize of March, 1846, when they came before Mr. Justice Erle.

The counsel for the prisoners was Mr. Cockburn, whose defence was both bold and ingenious.

He argued that the wound produced by the pistol bullet was not the cause of death, that the efforts of the medical man who first attended the deceased, and who had stayed the bleeding with ice,

pressure, and compresses, would have saved the life of the deceased, had not the operation for tying the iliac been resorted to.

Consequently, Cockburn argued, death was the result rather the result of a meddlesome operation than of the wound inflicted by the pistol bullet in the first place.

The powerful appeal of the counsel, and the knowledge that Hawkey had received much provocation, evidently had its weight with the jury, who returned a verdict of: "Not guilty."

This duel created a great sensation, not only in Portsmouth, but throughout the country, with the duels of Lord Cardigan and Colonel Tuckett and Colonel Faucett and Lieutenant Munroe, were fresh in people's memory, and the legislature was at that time busy framing repressive measures for putting down this infamous system.

Steinmetz, in his Romance of Duelling, says, "this was the last duel fought in this country by Englishmen." It was indeed and although no legislation was needed to curb a system of dispute resolution that had always been illegal in Britain, an Act of Parliament did become law that eventually saw an end to it.

That Act made it possible for the relatives of anyone murdered or maimed in Britain to claim damages from the party responsible - satisfying honour seemed to lose much of its appeal after that!