William Pitt the Younger and George Tierney fought a pistol duel on Putney Heath on 27 May 1798. Pitt was the Prime Minister. Tierney was an opposition MP. Both men fired. Neither was hurt.

The quarrel had begun in Parliament. Britain was at war with revolutionary France, and arguments over national defence carried heavy political weight. Pitt accused Tierney of obstructing measures for the country’s security. Tierney treated that as an attack on his public honour.

The dispute then moved out of the Commons. The two men met on Putney Heath, seconds were present, and they followed the rules of duelling. The meeting was unlawful, but it was not outside the habits of elite politics.

The duel changed no policy. It did not settle the argument over defence. Its value is in what it shows. Late Georgian politics had Parliament, party conflict and public debate. Still, it also had older ideas about honour and personal reputation. A charge made in public could still demand an answer outside the chamber.

Pitt and Tierney survived the meeting. The episode is useful because it shows a political world in which wartime pressure and personal honour could send a prime minister and an opponent to Putney Heath, each with a pistol.