Why Was Scotland's Last Duel Fought in Canada?

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]Hello there. I'm Bruce Fumi. I'm from Perth and Scotland. But the last time I was in Perth, Ontario, I made a video there about events between two Scotsman living there in 1833.

[00:00:14]And since I'm about to set off and travel across Canada with my live show, Scotland Made the World, I thought I'd upload that video for you. So, please share it with everyone you know in Canada that's interested in Scotland and Scottish things. Here's the video. I'll see you in Canada. When was the last time two Scotsman met on the Field of Honor, leaving one dead at the end of it.

[00:00:41]You may have seen the BBC Timewatch program that told you it was David Landale and George Morgan in Kcotti in 1826.

[00:00:52]But they were wrong.

[00:00:58]In fact, it was 7 years later here on the banks of the River Tay in Perth.

[00:01:06]Now, regular viewers will know that I'm from Perth, but today we are talking about the quaint historic town of Perth, Ontario. So, if you're interested in the people, places, and events in Scottish history, then click the subscribe button at the bottom right of the screen and ring the notification bell to be told when I upload new videos. In the meantime, let me tell you a story.

[00:01:30]It's summer 1815.

[00:01:33]The Battle of Waterlue brought the Napoleonic Wars to an end in continental Europe.

[00:01:39]Here on a different continent, territories and forts were being handed over to fix the borders between what we call Canada and the USA.

[00:01:50]In 1812, the Americans had declared war on Britain on the 20th of June.

[00:01:58]What were they thinking about?

[00:02:01]Whatever they were thinking, they invaded what we'd call Ontario on July the 12th.

[00:02:08]Anyway, it's now summer 1815, and now that the good old plucky Brits had seen off Napoleonic aggression on one side of the Atlantic and march south to burn down the White House on the other, we'd shown who was boss.

[00:02:25]But there were a new series of problems to be solved.

[00:02:29]Back home, thousands of soldiers were returning to a country where the industrial revolution was in full swing, leaving them jobless and hungry. Weavers were particularly badly affected.

[00:02:43]Here in Ontario, there was an ill-man front line of defense should American aggression raise its head again.

[00:02:55]Just north of Lake Ontario that marked the boundary with our southern neighbors was an ideal place for Britain to base a military camp. So another thing happened in the summer of 1815 and that was that the deputy agent general of forces in the Canada issued orders for the granting to disbanded soldiers locations of wastelands and crown reserves in the Canada.

[00:03:24]This place was chosen as a location for one of those military camps, but within a very short eight years, it would be the town of Perth. Halfpay officers demobilized troops predominantly from the Glengari regiment were given land holdings. An advertising campaign ran to lure civilian folks from Scotland.

[00:03:49]However, to make sure folks stayed here as a defense against the southern neighbors rather than swanning off down to warmer clims and then joining them, a bounty was charged for folks coming to occupy land. So the people who were settled here weren't landless tenants brutally cleared from their homes in the highlands, but halfpay army officers, landers who could afford the bounty. And of course, along with some Irish and odds and sods of French and English, a community was built that very quickly created what is the most delightful Canadian town that I've been in. The houses are older, more established, stoneuilt, and with a Regency feel compared to more modern and wooden buildings you'll see in so many other places.

[00:04:43]There were possibly even remnants of class, propriety and pseudo refinement.

[00:04:52]I say pseudo refinement.

[00:04:54]We are in the Americas.

[00:05:00]The military surveyors had laid out the structure of the town in April 1816.

[00:05:06]Within 6 months, 840 men, 207 women, and 458 children lived here. And 18 years after that tumultuous year that saw an end to wars, land grants to soldiers, and the first immigrant ship sailing from Green, Perth was a thriving town.

[00:05:30]Two of its young residents concern us.

[00:05:33]Robert Lion had immigrated from Invaruri.

[00:05:37]There his dad had been the mayor. Here his elder brother was justice of the peace, a decorated soldier and one of those officers from the war of 1812 who had settled on half pay. He was now well married and would go on to be army pension agent, magistrate, millowner, distiller, and later elected to the upper Canada legislature. In the meantime, he arranged for we brother Robert to apprentice in the solicitor firm of his brother-in-law Thomas Radenhurst.

[00:06:15]This was Thomas Radenhurst's house. It's called Ingava and it's now a museum.

[00:06:22]But he wasn't the only solicitor in town.

[00:06:30]John Wilson didn't have the well bred background and stature of Robert Lion.

[00:06:36]In some ways, their status was similar.

[00:06:39]They were both apprentice to solicitors in the town. But Wilson didn't achieve his position by status or connections.

[00:06:48]Born in Paisley, the son of a weaver, Wilson lived here in Summit House, his boss James Bolton's home, and he had to work as a school teacher in the morning before heading to work for Bolton as a trainee solicitor.

[00:07:05]The two young men are almost a parody of the divide between Perth's military officer class and the civilian immigrant class.

[00:07:14]Everything Wilson had, he'd achieved himself by hard work.

[00:07:20]Some say the one thing that he hoped for was the affection of a young school teacher called Elizabeth Hughes.

[00:07:30]It seems that this was a love that wasn't entirely requited.

[00:07:37]At the cusp of the Victorian era, one might have thought that intelligence, hard work, stable career prospects, and godliness might be all you need.

[00:07:48]But apparently not.

[00:07:55]Now, depending on who you believe, either Robert Lion made inappropriate advances to the lovely Elizabeth Hughes, which John Wilson found out about, wrote to her boss, which caused a scandal, sending Robert Lion round the streets looking for John Wilson, and a punchup ensued, or the less romanticized version where there was no letter, but the overconfident, better bred, more eligible Robert Lion was making fun of John Wilson in the street and that's what led to the fight.

[00:08:31]Either way, Robert Lion called John Wilson a damned lying scoundrel.

[00:08:38]He punched him in the nose and Wilson got a right good public hiding at close quarters leading them to demand satisfaction at 20 paces.

[00:08:49]or they could avoid it all by lying making an apology.

[00:08:55]Lion refused to apologize.

[00:08:59]Now, in case you didn't know, my reason for traveling to Canada back in 2024 was to tour my standup show. And in June and July of 2026, I'm coming back with a new show called Scotland Made the World.

[00:09:13]I'll be traveling the whole country from Sydney and Cape Breton on the 5th of June through to Victoria BC in the 26th of July in every province in between. Go to my website www.brfumi.co.uk for venues, dates, and tickets. And please share this with everyone you know in Canada who's interested in things Scottish and I'll see them at one of my shows.

[00:09:43]On a drizzly evening of the 13th of June 1833, two law students from very different backgrounds walked towards the river Tay here to make sure that they were outside the town limits for a 6:00 p.m. meeting.

[00:10:01]Truth be told, most of these affairs ended with a negotiation just before things got out of hand. The seconds sorted out some form of words that could be a compromise or both men shot in the air to miss or some such thing like that.

[00:10:18]But here we had two young men. One confident, well-b bred, you might even say hotty 20-year-old who had no intention of refusing the challenge that had been sent by the official second to Wilson, the smaller, industrious but somewhat ordinary competitor two years lions elder. But surely much beneath them, this jewel was going ahead.

[00:10:51]Rain came down as they went through the ritual of preparation.

[00:10:56]60 ft apart on the muddy banks of the Tay near what's now called the last jewel park.

[00:11:03]On a command, they both made their shots.

[00:11:07]Both shots missed, but one jewelist said that he'd felt his hair flutter from the rush of wind caused by the ball whizzing by.

[00:11:17]The younger lion insisted that they take a second shot. The pistols were loaded once more. Each young man took his stance.

[00:11:30]The sound of the cold sequence would have been as steady as the fallen rain.

[00:11:35]No doubt running down their face, mixing with the sweat in their brows.

[00:11:42]On the call, they fired. A ball whistled through the air, then under an outstretched arm and through each lung before leaving the body of Robert Lion.

[00:11:57]He fell where he stood.

[00:12:00]He died where he fell.

[00:12:07]Robert Lion's body was taken back to Ingava House on Craig Street as John Wilson and his second Simon Fraser Robertson headed to the magistrates to hand themselves in.

[00:12:21]Meanwhile, the district deputy sheriff William Powell, who'd seen the jewel from a nearby barn, collected the weapons from the scene.

[00:12:31]Two magistrates and a coroner held an inquest that demanded justice.

[00:12:37]As it was, they were found not guilty of murder and acquitted. But that wasn't the end of it.

[00:12:46]This is Perth Museum. Now, that sounds kind of funny because back home, Perth Museum's a much larger place where you'll find Scotland's most sacred object. But here in the Museum of Perth, Ontario, we can see the very pistols that were used that day.

[00:13:07]Who did they belong to?

[00:13:10]Two young men still in their legal apprenticeships couldn't possibly have the money to own such valuable items as these. The deputy sheriff who collected them from the field in a small town where everyone must know each other said that he had no idea who these valuable and unusual pistols belong to.

[00:13:34]Really, the romanticized story paints a picture of two young men taking the field of honor over a woman.

[00:13:43]But there was more going on under the surface. You see, there have been other jewels fought in Perth recently, 3 years before Lion and Wilson met on the field.

[00:13:54]Almost to the day, their bosses, Thomas Mban Radhurst of Ingava and James Bolton of Summit House met in a jewel.

[00:14:06]Apparently, after exchanging shots without effect, an amicable arrangement took place through the interference of the seconds.

[00:14:16]Could these be the same pistols used by the bosses who walked away from the Field of Honor exactly three years before their apprentices John Wilson and Robert Lion didn't.

[00:14:37]Many in the town were appalled at the not-guilty verdict, and both John Wilson and his boss James Bolton were ostracized and lost all standing in the area, as did Elizabeth Hughes.

[00:14:54]Wilson went on to marry Elizabeth Hughes and had three children.

[00:14:59]He first worked for his boss Bolton in Niagara and then set up his own legal practice in London, Ontario. He helped organize local resistance against the Upper Canada Rebellion and he was made captain of the militia there. He served as a warden for the London district and as a solicitor for the city of London.

[00:15:22]He was elected to the legislative assembly of the province of Upper Canada. He was named Queen's Council, elected to the Legislative Council for St. Clare and then became a judge.

[00:15:36]He died in Westminster, Ontario at the age of 62, by which time Robert Lion had already been lying here for 60 years.

[00:15:54]21 seems young to throw your life away over a punch in the nose. Whether it's because of a girl or your feuding employers and yet this is where Robert Lion found himself.

[00:16:10]How many years of life would you give up for a punch in the nose?

[00:16:16]I've made other videos about incredible stories of Scots in Canada. There's one coming up on screen now. You should definitely watch it. Support the channel by clicking top right to become a Patreon member or buy me a coffee in the description below. In the meantime, Shar and raster.