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Chapter 12
The Influence of Butch Cassidy on the Development of
English Company Law
Roger Gregory and Frank Sharman
One of the most remarkable things about the legends of the Wild West is that
many of them are true or based very closely on the truth. There really were
bad men who went by names like Billy the Kid, Bloody Bill Anderson, Black
Jack Ketchum and Three-Fingered Jack; they did rustle cattle and rob trains,
and hide out in places with names like The Hole in the Wall; and they did
retreat to Mexico when the U.S. Marshal came too close. Judge Parker did
sentence 160 men to death, of whom seventy-nine actually made the drop.
Naturally the stories have become embroidered and the characters in them
romanticized. There was a gun fight at the O.K. Corral, but there was as
little to be said for Wyatt and Virgil Earp and Doc Holliday as there was
for the Clanton gang; the affair was short and messy and over in a few
seconds.
With all legends it eventually becomes difficult to discern what truth, if
any, lies behind them. The purpose of this essay is to try to discover what
truth lies behind one of the stories which has become attached to the name
of Butch Cassidy. This story is one which occurs not only in the Wild West
and the fervid imagination of Hollywood but in east Kent and the court of
Chancery.
The authors of this essay first heard the story from one of their law students,
Reginald Scragg. He told it in a tutorial which was considering the case of
Hickman v. The Kent or Romney Marsh Sheep Breeders' Association. 1 The
story is curious and remarkable and suggests that had it not been for Butch
Cassidy this case would never have been brought and that, therefore, the
course of English company law might have been different. To assess what
truth there is in this proposition we must start by assessing the place of the
case in the development of English company law.
15.
1 [1915] 1 Ch. 881; The Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, Chancery Records, Classes J 4 and J