Download or read book Law and Government in England during the Long Eighteenth Century written by D. Lemmings and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-10-28 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the long eighteenth century English governance was transformed by large adjustments to the legal instruments and processes of power. This book documents and analyzes these shifts and focuses upon the changing relations between legal authority and the English people.

Download or read book Crime Justice and Discretion in England 1740 1820 written by Peter King and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2000-09-28 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The criminal law has often been seen as central to the rule of the eighteenth-century landed élite in England. This book presents a detailed analysis of the judicial processs - of victims' reactions, pretrial practices, policing, magistrates hearings, trials, sentencing, pardoning and punishment - using property offenders as its main focus. The period 1740-1820 - the final era before the coming of the new police and the repeal of the capital code - emerges as the great age of discretionary justice, and the book explores the impact of the vast discretionary powers held by many social groups. It reassesses both the relationship between crime rates and the economic deprivation, and the many ways that vulnerability to prosecution varied widely across the lifecycle, in the light of the highly selective nature of pretrial negotiations. More centrally, by asking at every stage - who used the law, for what purposes, in whose interests and with what social effects - it opens up a number of new perspectives on the role of the law in eighteenth-century social relations. The law emerges as less the instrument of particular élite groups and more as an arena of struggle, of negotiation, and of compromise. Its rituals were less controllable and its merciful moments less manageable and less exclusively available to the gentry élite than has been previously suggested. Justice was vulnerable to power, but was also mobilised to constrain it. Despite the key functions that the propertied fulfilled, courtroom crowds, the counter-theatre of the condemned, and the decisions of the victims from a very wide range of backgrounds had a role to play, and the criteria on which decisions were based were shaped as much by the broad and more humane discourse which Fielding called the 'good mind' as by the instrumental needs of the propertied élites.

Download or read book Eighteenth Century Britain 1688 1783 written by Jeremy Black and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2008-09-10 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jeremy Black sets the politics of eighteenth century Britain into the fascinating context of social, economic, cultural, religious and scientific developments. The second edition of this successful text by a leading authority in the field has now been updated and expanded to incorporate the latest research and scholarship.

Download or read book Law Crime and English Society 1660 1830 written by Norma Landau and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-10-17 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how the law was made, defined, administered, and used in eighteenth-century England. A team of leading international historians explore the ways in which legal concerns and procedures came to permeate society and reflect on eighteenth-century concepts of corruption, oppression, and institutional efficiency. These themes are pursued throughout in a broad range of contributions which include studies of magistrates and courts; the forcible enlistment of soldiers and sailors; the eighteenth-century 'bloody code'; the making of law basic to nineteenth-century social reform; the populace's extension of law's arena to newspapers; theologians' use of assumptions basic to English law; Lord Chief Justice Mansfield's concept of the liberty intrinsic to England; and Blackstone's concept of the framework of English law. The result is an invaluable account of the legal bases of eighteenth-century society which is essential reading for historians at all levels.

Download or read book Crime and Law in England 1750 1840 written by Peter King and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-12-07 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How was law made in England in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? Through detailed studies of what the courts actually did, Peter King argues that parliament and the Westminster courts played a less important role in the process of law making than is usually assumed. Justice was often remade from the margins by magistrates, judges and others at the local level. His book also focuses on four specific themes - gender, youth, violent crime and the attack on customary rights. In doing so it highlights a variety of important changes - the relatively lenient treatment meted out to women by the late eighteenth century, the early development of the juvenile reformatory in England before 1825, i.e. before similar changes on the continent or in America, and the growing intolerance of the courts towards everyday violence. This study is invaluable reading to anyone interested in British political and legal history.

Download or read book Whores and Highwaymen written by Gregory J. Durston and published by Waterside Press. This book was released on 2012-11-19 with total page 683 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ‘whores’ and ‘highwaymen’ of Gregory Durston’s title are just some of the dubious characters met within this absorbing work, including thief-takers, trading justices, an upstart legal profession whose lower orders developed various ways to line their own pockets and magistrates and clerks who often preferred dealing with those cases which attracted fees. The book shows how little was planned by government or the authorities, and how much sprang up due to the efforts of individuals—so that the origins of social control, particularly at a local level, had much to do with personal ideas of morality, class boundaries and perceived threats, serious and otherwise. Based on news reports, Old Bailey and local archives, and other solid records the book weaves a compelling picture of a critical time in English history, through the voices of contemporary observers as well as the best of writings by experts ever since. At its broadest point, the book spans the period from the Glorious Revolution to the early 1820s. It falls into three parts: Crime and the Metropolis—including Metropolitan crime, attitudes to crime and policing, explanations for crime, and criminal law and procedure. Policing—including policing the metropolis, constables, the watch, beadles, the role of the military, and the detection of crime. Justice—including the magistracy and its work, ways of prosecution, trial in the lower and higher courts, and the penal regimes of the day. A colourful account, which captures the essence of the period.

Download or read book The London Mob written by Robert Brink Shoemaker and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A portrait of London violence in the eighteenth century describes the economic, political, and religious conflicts that resulted in pervasive levels of crime and conflict, citing the role of everyday citizens in keeping the peace and meting out mob justice.

Download or read book Obligation Entitlement and Dispute under the English Poor Laws written by Peter Jones and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-25 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With its focus on poverty and welfare in England between the seventeenth and later nineteenth centuries, this book addresses a range of questions that are often thought of as essentially “modern”: How should the state support those in work but who do not earn enough to get by? How should communities deal with in-migrants and immigrants who might have made only the lightest contribution to the economic and social lives of those communities? What basket of welfare rights ought to be attached to the status of citizen? How might people prove, maintain and pass on a sense of “belonging” to a place? How should and could the poor navigate a welfare system which was essentially discretionary? What agency could the poor have and how did ordinary officials understand their respective duties to the poor and to taxpayers? And how far was the state successful in introducing, monitoring and maintaining a uniform welfare system which matched the intent and letter of the law? This volume takes these core questions as a starting point. Synthesising a rich body of sources ranging from pauper letters through to legal cases in the highest courts in the land, this book offers a re-evaluation of the Old and New Poor Laws. Challenging traditional chronological dichotomies, it evaluates and puts to use new sources, and questions a range of long-standing assumptions about the experience of being poor. In doing so, the compelling voices of the poor move to centre stage and provide a human dimension to debates about rights, obligations and duties under the Old and New Poor Laws.

Download or read book Unquiet Lives written by Joanne Bailey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-07-17 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on vivid court records and newspaper advertisements, this 2003 book is a pioneering account of the expectations and experiences of married life among the middle and labouring ranks in the long eighteenth century. Its original methodology draws attention to the material life of marriage, which has long been dominated by theories of emotional shifts or fashionable accounts of spouses' gendered, oppositional lives. Thus it challenges preconceptions about authority in the household, by showing the extent to which husbands depended upon their wives' vital economic activities: household management and child care. Not only did this forge co-dependency between spouses, it undermined men's autonomy. The power balance within marriage is further revised by evidence that the sexual double standard was not rigidly applied in everyday life. The book also shows that ideas about adultery and domestic violence evolved in the eighteenth century, influenced by new models of masculinity and femininity.

Download or read book Understanding Early Modern Primary Sources written by Laura Sangha and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-07 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding Early Modern Primary Sources is an introduction to the rich treasury of source material available to students of early modern history. During this period, political development, economic and social change, rising literacy levels, and the success of the printing press, ensured that the State, the Church and the people generated texts and objects on an unprecedented scale. This book introduces students to the sources that survived to become indispensable primary material studied by historians. After a wide-ranging introductory essay, part I of the book, ‘Sources’, takes the reader through seven key categories of primary material, including governmental, ecclesiastical and legal records, diaries and literary works, print, and visual and material sources. Each chapter addresses how different types of material were produced, whilst also pointing readers towards the most important and accessible physical and digital source collections. Part II, ‘Histories’, takes a thematic approach. Each chapter in this section explores the sources that are used to address major early modern themes, including political and popular cultures, the economy, science, religion, gender, warfare, and global exploration. This collection of essays by leading historians in their respective fields showcases how practitioners research the early modern period, and is an invaluable resource for any student embarking on their studies of the early modern period.

Download or read book Down and Out in Eighteenth Century London written by Tim Hitchcock and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: London in the eighteenth century was the greatest city in the world. It was a magnet that drew men and women from the rest of England in huge numbers. For a few the streets were paved with gold, but for the majority it was a harsh world with little guarantee of money or food. For the poor and destitute, London's streets offered little more than the barest living. Yet men, women and children found a great variety of ways to eke out their existence, sweeping roads, selling matches, singing ballads and performing all sorts of menial labor. Many of these activities, apart from the direct begging of the disabled, depended on an appeal to charity, but one often mixed with threats and promises. Down and Out in Eighteenth-Century London provides a remarkable insight into the lives of Londoners, for all of whom the demands of charity and begging were part of their everyday world.

Download or read book A Certain Share of Low Cunning written by David J. Cox and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-02 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an account and analysis of the history of the Bow Street Runners, precursors of today's police force. Through a detailed analysis of a wide range of both qualitative and quantitative research data, this book provides a fresh insight into their history, arguing that the use of Bow Street personnel in provincially instigated cases was much more common than has been assumed by many historians. It also demonstrates that the range of activities carried out by Bow Street personnel whilst employed on such cases was far more complex than can be gleaned from the majority of books and articles concerning early nineteenth-century provincial policing, which often do little more than touch on the role of Bow Street. By describing the various roles and activities of the Bow Street Principal Officers with specific regard to cases originating in the provinces it also places them firmly within the wider contexts of provincial law-enforcement and policing history. The book investigates the types of case in which the 'Runners' were involved, who employed them and why, how they operated, including their interaction with local law-enforcement bodies, and how they were perceived by those who utilized their services. It also discusses the legacy of the Principal Officers with regard to subsequent developments within policing. Bow Street Police Office and its personnel have long been regarded by many historians as little more than a discrete and often inconsequential footnote to the history of policing, leading to a partial and incomplete understanding of their work. This viewpoint is challenged in this book, which argues that in several ways the utilization of Principal Officers in provincially instigated cases paved the way for important subsequent developments in policing, especially with regard to detective practices. It is also the first work to provide a clear distinction between the Principal Officers and their less senior colleagues.

Download or read book Two Capitals written by Peter Clark and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a comparative analysis of the two great cities, London and Dublin, and their rise between the 16th and early 19th centuries.

Download or read book The Local written by Paul Jennings and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2021-06-25 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul Jennings traces the history of the British pub, and looks at how it evolved from the eighteenth century's coaching inns and humble alehouses, back-street beer houses and 'fine, flaring' gin palaces to the drinking establishments of the twenty-first century. Covering all aspects of pub life, this fascinating history looks at pubs in cities and rural areas, seaports and industrial towns. It identifies trends and discusses architectural and internal design, the brewing and distilling industries and the cultural significance of drink in society. Looking at everything from music and games to opening times and how they have affected anti-social behaviour, The Local is a must-read for every self-respecting pub-goer, from landlady to lager-lout.

Download or read book Female Transgression in Early Modern Britain written by Richard Hillman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting a broad spectrum of reflections on the subject of female transgression in early modern Britain, this volume proposes a richly productive dialogue between literary and historical approaches to the topic. The essays presented here cover a range of ’transgressive’ women: daughters, witches, prostitutes, thieves; mothers/wives/murderers; violence in NW England; violence in Scotland; single mothers; women as (sexual) partners in crime. Contributions illustrate the dynamic relation between fiction and fact that informs literary and socio-historical analysis alike, exploring female transgression as a process, not of crossing fixed boundaries, but of negotiating the epistemological space between representation and documentation.

Download or read book Tracing Your Ancestors in County Records written by Stuart A. Raymond and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2016-09-30 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed handbook to the English and Welsh Quarter Sessions records, their background, and how they can be used by genealogists and historians. For over 500 years, between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Justices of the Peace were the embodiment of government for most of our ancestors. The records they and other county officials kept are invaluable sources for local and family historians, and Stuart Raymond's handbook is the first in-depth guide to them. He shows how and why they were created, what information they contain, and how they can be accessed and used. Justices of the Peace met regularly in Quarter Sessions, judging minor criminal matters, licensing alehouses, paying pensions to maimed soldiers, overseeing roads and bridges, and running gaols and hospitals. They supervised the work of parish constables, highway surveyors, poor law overseers, and other officers. And they kept extensive records of their work, which are invaluable to researchers today. As Stuart Raymond explains, the lord lieutenant, the sheriff, the assize judges, the clerk of the peace, and the coroner, together with a variety of subordinate officials, also played important roles in county government. Most of them left records that give us detailed insights into our ancestors’ lives. The wide range of surviving county records deserve to be better known and more widely used, and Stuart Raymond’s book is a fascinating introduction to them. Praise for Tracing Your Ancestors in County Records “This is invaluable stuff: while other books may mention the records, this volume provides a useful understanding of the processes and public philosophies that led to them in the first place. There are plenty of references for further reading, too. . . . An excellent textbook exploring the mechanics of local record-keeping.” —Your Family History (UK) “This great introduction to county records will soon have you chomping at the bit to head to your nearest archive to begin exploring beyond the records available online. Well-known family and local historian (and Family Tree contributor) Stuart A. Raymond provides a concise and easy guide to the rich seam of records you can expect to find (and those you can't), going back 500 years to when Justices of the Peace were the embodiment of local government for our ancestors. There’s a wealth of information to get your teeth into.” —Family Tree (UK)

Download or read book Transforming English Rural Society written by John Broad and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-04-22 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1540 and 1920 the English elite transformed the countryside and landscape by building up landed estates which were concentrated around their country houses. John Broad's study of the Verney family of Middle Claydon in Buckinghamshire demonstrates two sides of that process. Charting the family's rise to wealth impelled by a strong dynastic imperative, Broad shows how the Verneys sought out heiress marriages to expand wealth and income. In parallel, he shows how the family managed its estates to maximize income and transformed three local village communities, creating a pattern of 'open' and 'closed' villages familiar to nineteenth-century commentators. Based on the formidable Verney family archive with its abundant correspondence, this book also examines the world of poor relief, farming families as well as strategies for estate expansion and social enhancement. It will appeal to anyone interested in the English countryside as a dynamic force in social and economic history.