ABSTRACT

In December 1816, a young Lieutenant, Allan Maclean, testified on behalf of his fellow soldier and friend, Henry Dive Townshend (1795–1882), during John Creighton’s suit against Townshend for seducing his young daughter, Catherine Matilda Creighton. 1 One evening, while Maclean and Townshend walked along the Dublin Canal, they passed 15-year-old Catherine walking with her 4-year-old sister on an errand for their father. It was roughly eight o’clock at night. Maclean was called to testify to the nature of their meeting, describing how they passed by Catherine but Townshend had turned back and ran after her, returning to meet him five minutes later. Maclean observed of her: ‘She appeared to be a girl of loose character walking about the Canal’. Maclean then continued with a list of other occasions that he had seen Catherine walking through town, mentioning the street names, time of day and her company, including ‘another female’ and a Lieutenant Bender. John Creighton’s lawyer, Thomas Wallace, interrogated Maclean on the latter encounter, which had also happened in the evening: ‘Was Bender’s character, I say, so bad that it would be disgraceful for a female to speak to him?’ Maclean replied:

A. I did not conceive it proper for a female to speak to him at that hour.

Q. Then it is quite right for a female who accidentally meets a person that she knows in the street to be considered by those who meet her as a woman of bad character?

A. I thought she was a stranger to Mr Bender, I believe she was. ...

Q. You met her in Merrion-square some time in August; now Merrion-square is I suppose as full of women of bad character, as the Canal?

A. I do not know.

Q. Do you believe that the Canal is a more proper place, or which scene do you think most proper?

A. Merrion Square, I believe in the day.

Q. Am I to understand, that ladies walk in the Summer there, until ten o’clock at night?

A. Protected.

Q. Then do you believe, that if an Officer’s wife, happens to be unprotected, any gentleman, who chooses, may take liberties with her?

A. I do not conceive, that it is a proper place for a female to walk, at that time of night.

Q. And if it is not, do you mean to convey, that if a young girl, happens to be found there in an unprotected situation; any gentleman, who chooses, is at liberty to treat her as he pleases; do you mean to convey that?

A. Not at all.

Q. Then if so, do you believe that the man, who seduced her on that night, is guilty or innocent?

A. (None made by the witness). 2