When did challenging to a duel cease to be a practice in English culture?

Question

In the Aubrey Maturin series of novels, there are at least two scenes where the protagonists are challenged to a duel:

1. Post-Captain - Aubrey and Maturin about Aubrey's reputation with the Admiralty
2. HMS Surprise - Stephen challenges another lover of Diana Villers to a duel

Now these novels are set in the period of English History [1800-1815] and are generally regarded to be meticulously researched historical fiction.

It seems to me that challenging another man to a duel (apart from being illegal), is no longer a part of English culture.

My question is: When did challenging to a duel cease to be a practice in English culture?

Answer 1

During the 1830s and 1840s.

In the twenties dueling was still common. From 1815 to 1830 Castlereagh, Canning, and Wellington were responsible in turn for the government of England, and they all fought duels. In the thirties dueling died out under the pressure of public opinion, and in 1844 the amended articles of war stated that any officer who fought a duel would be cashiered.

_{- Thomson, David, and P. A. Williams. England in the Nineteenth Century, 1815-1914. Vol. 8. Penguin books, 1950.}

The practice went into sharp decline and went virtually extinct after the mid 1840s or so. The last recorded fatal duel seemed to have happened in 1852, between two Frenchmen.

Answer 2

In 1964 two Magdalen undergrads, Adam Poynter and Rory Donellan, fought a duel after Mr Donellan described a Lady Margaret girl whom Mr Poynter admired as "thick" and Mr Poynter slapped Mr Donellan with a glove. Honour was satisfied when Mr Poynter sustained a cut in his wrist and the gentlemen went back to Mr Donellan's room for a whisky.