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02 June 2017 / David Hewitt
Issue: 7748 / Categories: Features
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Lessons to be learnt

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Modern lawyers & judges can take lessons from the 1917 case of Joseph Blackburn, says David Hewitt

I have written about Joseph Blackburn before. He is the man who was forced to fight in the Great War, even though he had already volunteered to do so (see ‘Joseph, 1917: a lesson for us all’, NLJ , 20 January 2017, p 22 & ‘Joseph: a lesson for us all (Pt 2)’, NLJ , 27 January 2017, p 22).

Joseph came from Thornton, near Blackpool, and when he made his case to a committee of local councillors, he was given an exemption from military service. But that exemption was taken away by the Central Tribunal, which sat in far-off Westminster and was led by the fourth Marquess of Salisbury.

I have looked at the tribunal’s surviving records and I believe that it acted wrongfully, not just by present-day standards, but also by rules it had made for itself.

Modern lessons

Although Lord Salisbury and his colleagues eventually acknowledged their error, nothing was

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