Court case(1889) 23 QBD 168

Mrs Tolson married in 1880; her husband deserted her in 1881. She was told by his brother and others that he had been lost at sea on a ship bound for America. Believing in good faith and on reasonable grounds that she was a widow, she went through a form of marriage with another man in 1887, within seven years of the desertion, so that the statutory exception for seven years' absence did not apply. The husband reappeared and she was convicted of bigamy, the question being reserved for the Court for Crown Cases Reserved.

By a majority of nine to five the conviction was quashed. Stephen J held that the full definition of every crime contains, expressly or by implication, a proposition as to a state of mind, and that an honest and reasonable belief in the existence of circumstances which, if true, would make the act innocent, is a defence unless the statute excludes it. Mrs Tolson's belief that her husband was dead was honest and reasonable; her act was therefore not criminal. The minority (Manisty J and others) would have read the statute literally.