Description

[004049] Bennet, William. Report of the Trial By Jury, Anderson Against Rintoul and Others, for Libels, Spoken at Public Meetings in Dundee, and Published in the Dundee, Perth, and Cupar Advertiser Newspaper. Edinburgh: John Lothian, 1824. First Edition. 8vo. Hardback. Pamphlet. Good. iv, [1], 2-151pp, [2], 2-38pp, [2]. Later quarter calf and marbled paper over boards, raised bands, spine in six panels, title in gilt to second and third panels, date to foot

Slightly rubbed to extremities, internally lightly browned, a couple of previous owners names to head of title with a few blue pencil lines to margins, small piece missing from top corners of pages 91-94, but generally clean

Report of the trial in which Patrick Anderson of Laws, a Dundee merchant, took an action for damages for various libels, both published in the local Dundee newspaper and also expressed at public meetings in the locality. The libels centred round a legacy of £6,000 bequeathed by Mr James Webster of Clapham Common in London to trustees, the interest in the capital to be used, in perpetuity, for the education of poor children born in Dundee, or the counties of Fife, Perth, or Forfar. Robert Rintoul’s newspaper, the Dundee Advertiser, alleged financial malpractice – or at least culpable mismanagement – by Anderson as trustee, effectively losing the whole of the £6,000 investment and therefore preventing the “very existence of the Dundee Academy”. The Anderson/Rintoul libel case in 1824 was concluded with a verdict for Rintoul

NLS only in Library Hub