Armed with Sword and Scales: Law, Culture, and Local Courtrooms in London, 1860–1913 (Studies in Legal History)

In the mid-eighteenth century, author and magistrate Henry Fielding adjudicated cases of theft, assault, and public disorder from his London home on Bow Street. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Fielding's modest 'police office' had expanded to become the most prolific court system in Britain and the cornerstone of criminal and civil justice in the metropolis. Sascha Auerbach examines the fascinating history of this institution through the lens of 'courtroom culture' – the combination of formal statute and informal custom that guided everyday practice in the London Police Courts. He offers a new model for understanding the relationship between law, culture, and society in modern Britain and illuminates how the local courtroom became a crucial part of everyday life and thoroughly entangled with popular representations of justice and morality. "In 1891, George P. Ingersoll travelled to London to gather material for the Yale Law Journal . Ingersoll belonged to one of Connecticut's most illustrious political families. Like his father, the state's Adjutant General, and his uncle, a former governor, Ingersoll was an alumnus of Yale Law School and a member of the Connecticut Bar Association.1 When this scion of Connecticut's legal and political elite described England's "temples of justice" in one of the nation's premier law journals, he was not referring to the Old Bailey, the Queen's Bench, or any of England's other renowned judicial venues.2 Instead, he offered readers a detailed description of the Bow Street Magistrates' Court. The magistrates' courts - or "police courts," as they were commonly called - were the bottom rung of England's criminal justice hierarchy. Their personnel spent much of their time adjudicating petty crime, mediating interpersonal conflicts, and issuing small fines for infractions of various municipal regulations"-- Provided by publisher Introduction -- "Many-coloured scenes of life" : the police courts in metropolitan culture and society, 1758-1860 -- "A ruffian rightly punished" : morality and local courtrooms in practice and portrayal, 1860-1880 -- "An evil quarter of an hour about the precincts" : urban reform and municipal authority in the courtroom, 1870-1902 -- "Two shillings' worth of revenge in the form of a summons" : the integration of courtrooms and communities in London, 1882-1902 -- A poor woman's court of justice, 1882-1910 -- "The very centre of observation and information" : constables, magistrates, and changing patterns of prosecution and punishment, 1880-1913 -- The historical and cultural legacies of the London magistrates courts