Armorie v. Delamirie (1722) K.B., 1 Strange 505, 93 ER 664

"I’ve tried to find out more information about [Armory v. Delamirie], but so far I’ve got nowhere. I’m still trying. But the trouble is that if the people in the case are poor, they tend to leave no trace in historical records. So if you do a case involving fairly wealthy people, you often find information. It’s easier to find information in the nineteenth century, because there are extensive newspaper reports. They often give very detailed accounts of litigation, so you get a lot of information from them, but the further back you go, the more difficult it gets. . . It’s such a strange case. I mean, here’s this chimney sweep boy, they were the lowest of the low, somehow suing – who paid for his lawyer? He’s suing the most distinguished silversmith of the early eighteenth century. The defendant’s work now sells for a million dollars an item. And yet we don’t know anything about how the case happened . . .I’ve [tried to get information on the case] intermittently for years, but I haven’t gotten anywhere. History is sometimes just hopeless. Sometimes you just have to give up."

We plan to do the next best thing and get all available relevant information about this case, with the probable exception of anything specific about the climbing boy at the center of it.

The Facts

Key Legal Propositions

Chimney Sweeps and Climbing Boys Plenty to follow on this, but for now, attached are several historical documents on scrotum cancer in climbing boys.

Paul De Lamerie

Goldsmiths

• butlin_scrotum_cancer_article.pdf: Three Lectures on Cancer of the Scrotum in Chimney-Sweeps by Henry T. Butlin