IF two Cumbrian gentlemen of the Georgian or early Victorian era needed to settle a dispute, then a pair of pistols and a duel at dawn was often the preferred solution.

A pair of the pistols they could have faced each other with is being sold at auction on March 13.

The duelling pistols are beautifully presented in a fitted mahogany box and were made by William Murdoch of Whitehaven.

They are thought to date to around 1840 and are included (LOT 104) in the sale by Sworders, of Standsted Mountfitchet, Essex.

The have a pre-sale estimate of £1,500 to £2,000.

Although the pistols were ideal for duellists, they would also have been taken to sea by captains for protection against any pirates encountered on long-distance trading journeys out of ports such as Whitaven, Maryport, Workington or Ulverston.

Pistols also provided personal protection for travellers on Cumbria's generally poor and unlit roads when meeting robbers was still a possibility.

This pair of pistols would fire a lead ball with the help of a black powder charge and a percussion cap to set it off.

The percussion cap was a single shot technical development over the flintlock era of firearms which had been in use from late medieval times and through the English Civil War to the Napoleonic Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The idea is very similar to the cap guns played with by children.

Perhaps the county's best documented duellist was the wealthy Ulverson-born merchant John Bolton who made his fortune from the slave trade.

He was born at Ulverston in 1756 and was the son of Abraham the apothecary who died when John was only seven or eight.

Bolton was apprenticed to merchant Henry Rawlinson at Liverpool and by the age of 17 he was sent to St Vincent in the West Indies.

He later traded on his own account and returned to Liverpool to invest in the slave trade - eventually making enough money to be able to live in grand style at Storrs Hall on the banks of Windermere.

His rise through the ranks of Georgian society was not without incident.

Bolton equipped a regiment of 600 men called the Liverpool Volunteers at his own expense and became colonel.

Nicknamed the Bolton Invincibles, they trained just outside Liverpool at Mosslake Fields.

One of his officers, Major Edwards Brooks, worked as a customs officer and asked for in increase on his £700-a-year salary. It is thought Brooks was also an Ulverston man.

Bolton, as president of the West Indies Association, refused.

Brooks challenged Bolton to a duel at Miller’s Dam, Aigburth Road, on December 20, 1804.

Someone tipped off the authorities and both were arrested by police.

They were bound over to keep the peace for 12 months

On a cold December afternoon in 1805 Brooks caught up with Bolton in Castle Street and the duel was back on.

The police intervened and Brooks was thrown in the cells for the afternoon and released as the light began to fade.

He went straight to the duelling point where he found Bolton waiting.

They retreated and turned to face each other, Brooks fired first and missed.

Bolton fired back and shot his opponent through the eye, killing him instantly.

Bolton disappeared and an inquest later found him guilty of murder.

But criminal charges were never brought as he was backed by public opinion and Brooks had challenged him.

John Bolton and his Whitehaven-born wife Elizabeth are commemorated by a headstone in the grounds of St Martin’s Church, Bownesson.

There is also a narrow ginnel off King Street, Ulverston, named after him and Bolton Street, Liverpool, also perpetuates his memory.

In 1824 a duel was fought between two officers at Kingmoor, Carlisle.

The Caledonian Mercury, on September 2, noted that the men involved were Cpt Maxwell, who was based in the city with the 1 st Royal Dragoons, and Cpt Johnston, a Royal Navy man from Edinburgh.

Both men took aim, fired - and missed.

James Lowther, the First Earl of Lonsdale, was born on August 5 in 1736 and was pretty fortunate to live until May 24 in 1802.

He was quick to take offence and had gathered plenty of enemies in more than 25 years as an MP and then as a peer with control over eight MPs - two each in Cumberland, Westmorland and Cockermouth and one each in Appleby and Carlisle.

On June 9 in 1792 he fought one of his duels with Cpt Cuthbert of The Guards - who refused to let the Earl's carriage pass through Mount Street in London.

The captain was challenged to a duel the following morning.

A pistol ball passed through the flap of Cuthbert's coat but both men were unhurt and the dispute was settled with a handshake.