The Construction of a Legal Framework for the Property of the Mentally Ill in Nineteenth Century England
British Academy Research Project (2010-11)
This project investigates the nature of the protection given by the law to the property of the mentally ill in the nineteenth century, in order to establish its scope, efficacy and influence on modern law. This law was developed when the numbers of the mentally ill grew rapidly. It consisted of two parallel jurisdictions – the statutory Lunacy Commission, which was the bureaucratic organ of government, and the courts. The wealthy and the destitute patients were provided for by the law, but the property of those of modest means was not addressed by either system. As the two systems operated within the dynamic context of increasing centralisation and ideological friction, conflicts and omissions in jurisdiction arose. The project assesses the response of the courts to the social, political and medical imperatives in providing for the safeguarding of patients’ property from misappropriation. It explores whether developments in psychiatric medicine influenced this response and the subsequent formulation of the law relating to property ownership and control by the mentally ill.
Tax Law, Tax Administration and Medical Practice, 1780-1920
The Wellcome Trust (2009-10)
This research project is a pilot project in preparation for a comprehensive examination of the relationship between tax law and medical practice during a period of major transformation of both the tax system and the medical profession. Against a background of immense social, political, fiscal and scientific change it identifies the tensions existing between the individual, the profession and the tax organs of the state in the context of medical practice. It investigates the nature of these tensions, how they were resolved, and the impact of tax law and administration on the quality, scope and nature of healthcare provision. It provides a legal perspective on medical history by addressing the application of the substance and processes of tax law to the practitioners of medicine and its institutions.
Lawyers in society 1258-1558
ESRC (2007-2009)
‘Lawyers in Society’ is an historical reconstruction of the social milieu and ethos of members of the legal profession in medieval and Tudor England. It complements what we know of the legal world inhabited by lawyers by examining their private lives: how they conducted themselves, how they managed their estates and households, where they lived, what their houses were like, their cultural pursuits and the nature of their marriages and alliances. The project assesses how men of law fitted into local society and, by tracing their social aspirations, achievements and disappointments, evaluates the permeability of class boundaries and the acceptability of new entrants to the county gentry and aristocracy. It reveals evidence of lawyers’ views of themselves and contextualises the perceptions engendered by activities carried out in a professional capacity.
The Victorian Taxpayer and the Law
Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2004-07)
This project addressed the central element of the taxpayer’s relationship with the law, namely the protection it afforded to ensure only the correct amount of tax was paid, that it was legally levied and justly administered. These legal safeguards consisted of the fundamental constitutional provision that all taxes had to be consented to in Parliament, local tax administration, and a power to appeal to specialist tribunals and the courts. The project explored how these legal safeguards were established and how they were affected by changing social, economic and political conditions. They were found to be restrictive and inadequate, and were undermined by the increasing dominance of the executive. Though they were significantly recast, they were not destroyed. They proved flexible and robust, and the challenge they faced in Victorian England revealed that the underlying, pervasive constitutional principle of consent from which they drew their legitimacy provided an enduring protection for the taxpayer.
The Victorian Taxpayer and the Law: A Study in Constitutional Conflict, Cambridge University Press, Tax Law Series, 2009, 226 pp
Law and Image in Medieval England
An Historical Iconography of Law, 1200-1500
British Academy Larger Research Grant Project (2002-2005)
The study examined the ways in which images of law and justice were employed and in turn experienced in both public and private domains in the historical context of late medieval England. It investigated ways in which notions of power, authority, jurisdiction, fairness and due process were conveyed visually and assessed the pervasiveness and ultimate effectiveness of this portrayal. The iconography of law and justice employs both sacred and secular images and accordingly this study drew upon various genres of illuminated manuscript and the art and architecture of varying types of public and domestic buildings. It attempted to recapture (in as far as is possible) the experience of people with regard not only to royal justice and the ambit of the common law, but also in relation to other jurisdictions. An appreciation of the scope, deployment and reception of legal images is important as a potential measure of legal awareness and the extent of participation in the legal arena.
The Legal Foundations of Tribunals in Nineteenth Century England
British Academy Research Readership (2001-03)
Nineteenth century governments faced considerable challenges from the rapid, novel and profound changes resulting from the industrial revolution. In the context of an increasingly sophisticated and complex government, from the 1830s the specialist and largely lay statutory tribunal was conceived and adopted as the principal method of both implementing the new regulatory legislation and resolving disputes, between the state and the subject, or between subjects. The tribunal’s legal nature and procedures, and its place in the machinery of justice, were debated and refined throughout the Victorian period. The project examined this process and explained the interaction between legal constraints, social and economic demand and political expediency which gave rise to this form of dispute-resolution. It revealed the imagination and creativity of legislators who drew on diverse legal institutions and values to create the new tribunals, and showed how the modern difficulties of legal classification and analysis were largely the result of the institution’s nineteenth-century development.
The Legal Foundations of Tribunals in Nineteenth Century England, Cambridge University Press, Studies in English Legal History Series, 2006, 354 pp
