British legal history

The glorious revolution

1688-89, William of Orange replaces James II, Bill of Rights enshrines parliamentary sovereignty

Act of Settlement

1701, enshrines judicial independence

Act of Union

1707, Union between England/Wales and Scotland

Hanoverian Line

German Georges, more parliamentary power, first Prime Ministers, Jacobite resistance

Jacobites

Supporters of James II

Jamestown Virginia

1607, First English colonial settlement in the Americas, first use of slave labour

East India Company established

1601

Sugar revolution

Economic reliance on slave trade and slave labour in carribbean, Mid-1600s

Dana Rabin reading on rule of law

Rule of law gives equality to some but not all, sets apart Britain’s “internal other”

Treaty making negotiated between 3 bodies

Settlers, indigenous people, Crown

Mohegans v Connecticut

First British recognition of Indigenous land title, 1700s

Royal Proclamation of 1763

Ends the 7 years war, culminated in the Treaty of Niagara, 1764

Treaty of Niagara

1764, recognition of Ingienous land title and gave religious rights to French Catholics

Two Treaties of Paris

1763, ended seven years war

1783, ended American revolution

War of Independence dates

1775-1783

No. 45

45th issue of his newspaper got John Wilkes arrested, he was charged with libel

John Wilkes

Owned a newspaper, very critical of government, arrested for libel, MPs barred him from sitting despite his popularity

Massacre of St George’s Fields

1768, crowds supported Wilkes, very peaceful but 11 killed, galvanized support for Wilkes

Thomas Paine

Wrote Common Sense, which urged American revolutionaries forward and said they should aim for full independence from the Crown.

Gordon Riots

1780, Gordon’s Protestant Association had anti-Catholic riots, sparked by Quebec Act and Catholic Relief Act

Company rule

1757-1858

Warren Hastings

Governor General in 1773, responsible to the Company and Crown

Accused of high crimes, argued he ruled using local norms, acquitted because of jurisdictional issues (crimes committed in India)

Edmund Burke (Hastings context)

Led the prosecution of Hastings

Hastings said he was given power by Bengal emporers, Burke thinks this is arbitrary/illegitimate

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

1789

French wars with European powers begin, abolition of monarchy

1792

British reaction to French revolution

Initially positive, saw the French as a beacon of rights, compared to Glorious Revolution

Edmund Burke (French revolution)

Insists change must happen within existing structures

Thomas Paine (French rev)

Argues the government is for the living, not the dead, refutes Burke, gets put on trial

London Corresponding Society

Wanted free press, lower taxes, independent judges/juries, pushed underground after 1790s

Two Acts of 1795

Repressive legislation that aimed to quell political movements and meetings, attacked free speech and free press, pushed London Corresponding Society underground

Driver of abolition

Everyday resistance and rebellion of enslaved people

James Somerset

1772, Enslaved man brought to England, ran away, got baptized, godparents get writ of habeas corpus

Granville Sharp

Lawyer for James Somerset, abolitionist, sought to differentiate chattel slavery and villeinage and prove illegality of slavery in England

Chief Justice Mansfield’s decision

Somerset case

Decided masters cannot force their slaves to go abroad

Taken to mean that a slave brought to GB = freed

Knight v. Wedderburn

1774

Scotland, slave brought is freed

Chipping away at abolition

Ottobah Cugoano

Sons of Africa, wrote moral treatise on the wrongs of slavery

Zong incident

1783

Dutch slave ship, ~140 enslaved people killed

Equiano brought the case to Sharp, Mansfield treated the enslaved like chattel

“The zong” = shorthand for cruelties of slavery

John Kimber

Captain of a slave ship who killed a girl, was arrested and tried for murder, sets precedent that you can try for this

William Arthur Hodge

First case where a slave owner is charged and convicted for killing someone they claimed to own

Olaudah Equiano

Sons of Africa, writes an embellished story of his own life

Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce

WW was an MP

Campaigned for abolition of the slave trade through a petitioning campaign

Abolition of the slave trade in Britain

1807

Emancipation of slavery

1833-34, but with a 7 year period of apprenticeship

Enfranchisement of non-anglican protestants (dissenters)

1828

Daniel O’Connell

Leader of Ireland’s catholic majority, GB was scared of rebellion so passed Catholic emancipation act

Catholic Emancipation Act

1829

Great Reform Act

1832

Enfranchised middle class men but not working class

Urban electorate expanded

Legally excludes women

2 main goals of Great Reform Act

Expansion of franchise

Redistribution of seats

Triple revolution

Agrarian, demographic, industrial

Triple revolutions led to

Emergence of a working class

Enclosure Acts

1773-1801

Shift from open field agriculture to fenced off monocultures, less workers producing more food

Peterloo Massacre

1819

Peaceful demonstration but 18 killed by troops, for workers rights and against Corn laws

Named after battle of Waterloo

Great Whig Betrayal

Great Reform Act did not include working class

Owenist socialism created

National Union of the Working Class

People’s Charter, 4 demands

1838

Annual parliament

All men 21+ can vote

Secret ballot

Working class men to sit in parliament

Fergus O’Connor

Leader of the Chartists

Chartists

Adopted the people’s charter, petitioned for it to be brought to parliament 3x, all three times it failed

1839, 1842, 1847

End of chartism

3x petition failed

Tory govt repealed corn laws

Economy improved

Built working class consciousness

Coverture

the common law legal doctrine that held a married woman’s legal personhood to be largely
covered by that of her husband

Avenues for divorce pre-1857

Church courts

Parliament

But coverture still in place, just a separation

Caroline Norton

Critiques laws of marriage and separation

Does not deem women and men equals

Attacked coverture, said women needed protection that actually protected them

Chancery

Special court of King’s conscience, sets up arrangements for wives such as moderations of coverture, marriage contracts, and some separations, but very expensive

Women can have custody of children

1839

Divorce

1857

Only men could seek divorce on adultery alone, but women now had expanded grounds including abandonment

Property law of 1870

Married women could claim property and wages earned during marriage

Property law 1882

Women could own all property, movable or real, no matter when it was acquired

R v Jackson

1891

Legal decision that says husbands have no legal right to confine or beat their wives

Contagious Diseases Acts

1864

Allowed police to arrest and examine women thought to be sex workers in port/army towns

Could be forcibly detained

Josephine Butler

Organized opposition to the CDAs, argued blatant sex and class discrimination, said they sanctioned male vice

Constitutional argument that women should be afforded the same protections of law that men had

How did the CDAs violate the constitution?

Being confined with no rule of law/trial/unjust detention, framed it as a violation of Magna Carta

Wolstenholme

Anti-CDA advocate with Butler, full time parliamentary lobbyist

Liberal imperialism

Justified spreading of ‘civil’ liberalism, exporting the rule of law

Indian uprising

1857

Prompted by Christian missionaries coming and the doctrine of lapse which granted land to company if it didn’t get inherited by a male heir

Morant Bay uprising

1865

Discontent about apprenticeship

Governor Eyre declares marital law, 400 protestors killed, he is investigated by Jamaica Committee

Jamaica Committee

JS Mill and others, pursue criminal charges against Governor Eyre for use of martial law, case failed due to jurisdictional limitation

Wolfe Tone and the rising of the United Irishmen

1798

Prompted the Act of Union which fully incorporated Ireland into the UK in 1801

Daniel O’Connell

Led movement to allow Catholics to vote and hold political office

Wanted repeal of union

Catholic emancipation in Ireland

1829

O’Connell insisted on ___

Moral force

Irish protestants did not support repeal of union because

They were the minority and would always be outvoted by Irish catholics

Young Irelanders

Advocates for full independence, nationalism, violence

Attempted to revolt in 1848, government suspends habeas corpus

Potato famine

1845-52

Potato blight, reliance on potato crop

Population fell by ~25% due to death and immigration

Treason Felony Act

1848

Reclassified offences that had been high treason as felonies with transportation sentence

Easier to charge transportation than death penalty

Fenians

Irish independence, in US and IR

Independent irish republic

British response to Fenians

Emphasized liberty under the law

Tried to make the fenian trials exemplars of rule of law

William Gladstone & two key measures

Leader of liberal party and prime minister, mission to pacify Ireland by:

• disestablishing Anglican church in IR

• Pushing land laws

Home Rule League

Wanted repeal of union, home rule with Dublin parliament and federation, inspired by Canadian federation

Land League

Free sale, fixture of tenure, fair rent

Wanted land reform for all

Home Rule Bills

1886 - would create a separate parliament in Dublin, but failed in parliament

1893 - same bill, passed house of commons but failed in house of lords

Lino’s reading about AV Dicey

Dicey was a proponent of rule of law, saw it as a good thing that Britain exported throughout empire via colonialism