[ Edmund Brown Viney Christian, writer on the law. ] Long unpublished account, in manuscript and typescript, of a miscarriage of justice: the case of William Henry Barber, convicted of forgery and transported to Australia in 1844.

62pp., 4to (comprising 45pp. in manuscript, and 17pp. in typescript). In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Numerous emendations and corrections throughout. Draft notes towards the piece cover 21pp., on loose leaves, with the completed text (both in manuscript and typescript) on leaves held together with a brass stud. Written in the pleasing style highlighted in Christian's obituary in The Times, 28 October 1938: 'not only admirable history, but also, owing to the many humorous flashes which illuminate them, excellent light reading'. Can be dated from an early reference to the Sacco and Vanzetti case of 1921. Barber was one of 244 convicts transported to Australia on the Agincourt, 6 July 1844, having been tried at the Old Bailey, alongside retired surgeon Joshua Fletcher and Georgiana Dorey, for forging the will of John Stewart. Widely believed to be innocent, he endured the harsh conditions at Norfolk Island, where the Chaplain, Rev. T. B. Naylor, campaigned on his behalf. He was granted a pardon in 1846 and returned to England. An account of the case was printed in the Sydney Morning Herald, June 1849, and Barber's correspondence was printed in the Colonial Times, 24 September 1847. Christian's Times obituary states that he 'combined successfully the profession of a solicitor with authorship; indeed, he might be described as the leading (or only) historian of his branch of the law'. He was also an accomplished cricketer, and writer on the game.