Nelson & His World

Tonight's edition of Garrow's Law (BBC 9.00 pm) sees 'Garrow taking on the Admiralty after complaints that naval veterans are being mistreated in Greenwich Hospital'. Should be of interest to all of us here.

The Garrow cases are based on real events, though sometimes the real outcome was different from the results Garrow achieved in the fictionalised account. Captain Baillie was, in fact, defended not by Garrow but by another brilliant lawyer, Mr Erskine, later Lord Chancellor.

The legal consultant to the series, Mark Pallis, has a website about Garrow's Law. You can find out the background to tonight's and other cases here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wdmg6

Anna,

Thanks for the information. I don't have Series Two yet, but it should be interesting. In passing, how much of the series have they altered, to suit the producer rather than the facts? I guess it makes for good television.

That was very interesting.

And especially since it also included a snippet of a case against Dr Graham - Emma's one time employer!

I was wondering how I had never previously come across this story of an Old Bailey trial against the governors of Greenwich Hospital - but I see from the BBC website that they did actually use a bit of dramatic licence there.

But I didn't feel that that detracted from the overall quality and interest of the programme.

Excellent!!

MB

Next week's episode will be the last in the series. Any bets on how the Garrow-Lady Hill-Sir Arthur Hill scenario will play out? Garrow and Lady Hill have got to get together, naturally; but divorce was almost impossible at that time. So no happy ending (unless Sir Arthur drops dead.) Hmmm. Well, in the last episode, there was a strange incident where Sir Arthur got drunk after receiving a letter, with no explanation as to why he was so disconcerted. Later, there was a shot of him receiving a mysterious lady. What's the likelihood that this lady is actually his wife? Maybe she had gone abroad, or was believed dead; maybe he deceived Lady Hill and married bigamously. Whatever, the clairvoyant of Nelson & His World predicts that, with the return of the wife, the way will be cleared for Lady H to retain custody of her son (if she's not legally married to Sir A. he can't invoke paternal rights) and to marry Garrow......tra-la, tra-la.