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(1884) 14 QBD 273. A party of four shipwrecked sailors were cast adrift with no food and little hope of resuce. After twenty days at sea all were near death from starvation, but the youngest, the cabin boy, was nearest. Two of the other sailors eventually killed and ate him. Shortly after, they were rescued.

In their trial for murder, the sailors claimed that they had no choice to do what they did: had they not eaten the cabin boy, all would have died. This defence was not accepted by the trial judge, nor at appeal. The sailors were sentenced to death but, in fact, the sentence was eventually communted to six months' hard labour.

This case is widely cited as authority for the proposition that even the direst necessity does not excuse a crime in English law. It is unclear to what extent re a conjoined twins (2001) modifies this proposition, if at all.