IT began with a good humoured raffle over a watch and ended with a man almost doing time.

A squabble broke out in a pub between a loser and the victor, and as harsh words were exchanged, the latter George Knight challenged him to a fight.

The landlord stepped in to restore order and it appeared both sides had called a truce but within yards of stepping outside, insults were again hurled between the pair who walked to the nearby common to sort out their differences.

Knight told him to stand and fight but William Gundry refused. “Not tonight, tomorrow morning,” he replied, but Knight would have none of it, “It’s now or never,” he demanded.

They gave as good as they got, with both men eventually falling to the ground, with Gundry toppling on top of him. He eventually staggered to his feet but Knight did not and it was clear he had been badly hurt.

A chair was summoned from the pub near Basingstoke and he was carried to a local surgeon who confirmed he had been fatally injured with an injury to his brain. He died a few hours later.

Gundry was arrested and chaged with manslaughter.

He appeared at Hampshire Assizes in 1851 when the surgeon said he had died from his head coming into hard contact with the ground.

The defence submitted Knight had died from the effects of a fall and not being thrown to the ground or being struck there.

After the judge, Mr Justice Coleridge, summed up. jurors did not leave their seats to consider their verdict.

They acquitted him to much cheering from the public gallery.