As governor he ordered a forceful response, which led to the deaths of numerous Jamaicans and the arrest and the summary execution of various political figures, whom Eyre believed to be instigators of the uprising.

Peter Handford described the background to the case as follows:[1] In 1865 Edward John Eyre, the Governor of Jamaica, in the course of suppressing a revolt, caused a leading activist to be tried and executed under martial law.

Over the next three years, a group of leading politicians and thinkers in England attempted to have Eyre prosecuted for murder.

Though this case, Phillips v Eyre, was mainly concerned with constitutional issues, Willes J laid down a rule for choice of law in tort which endured for nearly a century before it was finally superseded.The particular activist concerned was George William Gordon, a mixed-race member of the local assembly.

That came to be known as the "Jamaica Question", which essentially boiled down to the question of whether Eyre to be regarded as a hero, who had fulfilled his duties as governor in suppressing the rebellion and saving the white population of Jamaica from massacre, or a murderer, who should be prosecuted and held accountable for his crimes.

[4] The activists referred to themselves as the "Jamaica Committee" and included liberal thinkers like John Bright, Charles Buxton, Peter Alfred Taylor, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Hughes, Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley and Goldwin Smith.

There is a presumption in English law against retrospective effect, and Willes J, who gave the judgment, noted, "The court will not ascribe retrospective force to new laws affecting rights unless by express words or necessary implication that such was the intention of the legislature".