The Australian Butcher Who Spent Eleven Years Trying to Claim a Hampshire Baronetcy and Spent Ten Years in Prison for It
Arthur Orton, a butcher from Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, claimed in 1866 to be Sir Roger Tichborne, heir to a Hampshire baronetcy who had been lost at sea in 1854. Two civil and criminal trials between 1871 and 1874 produced the longest jury trials in English history at the time. Orton was sentenced to 14 years for perjury; he served 10. The case generated a working-class political movement.
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