Information on Victorian Era Court Judges

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vicky271

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I'm looking into possibly writing a set of novels set in the Victorian Era. As a result, I'm looking for information from ya'll or free online sources that detail information about the judge occupation. I was under the impression that certain court employees during this era were often in the Noble class. I could be wrong since I'm not an expert on Victorian Era (just started my research), but my goal is for the family to be in the Noble/Upper class. I thought researching a judge and the occupation as a whole would be a good start :)

I have done some basic research on the Victorian Era period, but I'm noticing that most sources touch on the same thing. I thought it appropriate to inquire about this topic since I've been unable to find an sources! Here are some questions I have:

1. My story is set in the Victorian period and my character's father is a judge. What kind of duties does he have?
2. Are all judges part of the Noble class? Or is that a minimal few? Are they not part of this class?
3. How often would a judge be home, and how often would he be at work?
4. Are there different levels of judges? How does one get into this career?
 
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waylander

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The Victorian era covers over 60 years and it was a time of rapid change in society. Can you give us a closer focus on which decade you want to write about? In the UK judges were chosen from the ranks of barristers, to get to be a barrister required a lot of education which cost a lot at a time when there were few universities, so inevitably they came from families with money. They were often younger sons of landed families, there was a tradition of the eldest son gets the estate and title, the second son goes to the army, third son to the church, fourth son to the law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_Counsel
 
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vicky271

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The Victorian era covers over 60 years and it was a time of rapid change in society. Can you give us a closer focus on which decade you want to write about? In the UK judges were chosen from the ranks of barristers, to get to be a barrister required a lot of education which cost a lot at a time when there were few universities, so inevitably they came from families with money. They were oten younger sons of landed families, there was a tradition of the eldest son gets the estate and title, the second son goes to the army, third son to the church, fourth son to the law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_Counsel

Thanks for the additional information. I had yet to look into that portion of the era (the which son inherits what) though I should've. I'll have to give that more thought and research. I hadn't decided if the house the family lived in was inherited, but if the father is a judge, I should assume it wasn't.

As for the decade, I'm think 15-20 years into the Victoria Era.
 

waylander

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1850s then.
If father was a judge then the pathway to entering the law for any son would be clear and hard to ignore. Father would have the contacts and money to get sons into a good school and law practice (not very different today). Father probably married the sister of another lawyer too.
 

lonestarlibrarian

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If you're having it that early in the Victorian era, please make sure you double-check about whose authority was over what in the court system.

I was reading "Hatred Pursued Beyond the Grave", which were little snippets of lawsuits and such over a period of 600 years, from the Archbishop of Canterbury's probate court. (The Prerogative Court of Canterbury.) It wasn't until I read that that I realized that Britain had a system of Church courts, and that sometimes ecclesiastical and civil law were mixed up, at least at the courts in the Doctors' Commons, where in 1830, fifteen courts had their registries. (Whatever those were...)

But--

This is not the place for a learned exposition on the nature of business conducted in church vestries and the 'consitorial places'. Suffice it to say that, at some time or other, the following came under the purview of God's justices: refusal to pay church rates, tithe suits, dereliction of duty by churchwardens or parish clerks, unseemly behaviour in church, working or rowdy drinking on Sunday, neglecting to have children baptised, adultery, fornication, incest, simony, heresy, witchcraft, bearing a bastard, all matrimonial suits, some sorts of slander, usury, the disposal of the personal estate of the dead (probate), all matters concerning the fabric and interior of churches, all matters of clergy discipline.

And from Britannica---

Reorganization of the courts

The jurisdiction of the church courts over the laity ended in 1857, when secular divorce and probate courts were set up. These merged into the High Court of Justice in 1875 as a result of the Judicature Acts of 1873–75, which reformed the civil courts. The Judicature Acts were much more than a regrouping and renaming of courts; they attempted to fuse law and equity by making available legal and equitable remedies in all divisions of the High Court and by providing that the equitable rule should prevail when conflicts arose. Common law and equity nevertheless preserved their separate identities, partly because of the different subject matter with which they often dealt and partly because lawyers persisted in maintaining the distinction.


In the late 19th century the three central courts of common law were amalgamated as the Queen’s Bench Division, which to this day continues to try suits for damages. Since 1875 cases have been tried by a single judge (sometimes, before 1933, with a jury), not by a full bench of judges.


After it became a division of the High Court in 1875, the chancery not only dealt with equity suits but also administered the voluminous legislation on property, bankruptcy, succession, copyrights, patents, and taxation. Contested probate cases were transferred to the chancery by the Courts Act of 1971. The Family Division of the High Court, dealing with matrimonial cases and issues relating to children, was created at the same time.


Before the Courts Act, criminal cases were tried two or three times a year at assizes (sessions) of the High Court or four times a year at quarter-sessions of magistrates in the provinces. A system of permanent provincial crown courts has replaced these. Civil assizes were replaced by allowing the High Court to sit at certain cities. Small civil cases, tried at statutory county courts since 1846, are now regulated by an act introduced in 1984.

So, the practice of law in 1851 would be very different from the practice of law in 1859. And the practice of law in 1859 would be very different from the practice of law in 1890. And the practice of law in 1890 is very different from the practice of law in 1990.

So, definitely make sure that you know your proctors vs your solicitors, your magistrates vs your circuit or high court judges, your Assize Courts vs your Queen's Bench vs your Magistrates' Courts, and so on.
 

vicky271

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If you're having it that early in the Victorian era, please make sure you double-check about whose authority was over what in the court system.

I was reading "Hatred Pursued Beyond the Grave", which were little snippets of lawsuits and such over a period of 600 years, from the Archbishop of Canterbury's probate court. (The Prerogative Court of Canterbury.) It wasn't until I read that that I realized that Britain had a system of Church courts, and that sometimes ecclesiastical and civil law were mixed up, at least at the courts in the Doctors' Commons, where in 1830, fifteen courts had their registries. (Whatever those were...)

But--



And from Britannica---



So, the practice of law in 1851 would be very different from the practice of law in 1859. And the practice of law in 1859 would be very different from the practice of law in 1890. And the practice of law in 1890 is very different from the practice of law in 1990.

So, definitely make sure that you know your proctors vs your solicitors, your magistrates vs your circuit or high court judges, your Assize Courts vs your Queen's Bench vs your Magistrates' Courts, and so on.


Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Perhaps finding a new, less complicated job for my mcs father would work. Are there any less known free websites that you'd recommend for further study on upper class and middle class occupations? And other such useful information?
 

lonestarlibrarian

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I know I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, but in general, a commoner with "inherited money" is going to rank socially higher than a commoner who has to work for his living.

So, suppose someone is a merchant, and is a very successful merchant, and he becomes very wealthy. In America, he would be looked up to as a self-made man, and respected for his hard work and success, but in mid-19th-c Britain, he would be looked down upon as a parvenu. However, suppose he has children, and he leaves the money to those children. His children would be of a higher social standing than he was-- because they inherited their fortune, rather than working for their fortune. And by the time you got to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, a lot of people would have forgotten the humble roots of the family's fortunes.

Money would usually be invested in government bonds at a particular percentage. So you have your sum, and it generates interest, and that's the "allowance" that you have to live off.

British government debt was the only security traded on the Stock Exchange at its foundation in 1801, and remained so until 1822.

Going back a bit further in time, just to look at how they got there--

The key piece of skill was the mechanism of “funding” that secured interest payments. When William and Mary re-established the Protestant monarchy in 1688, Parliament wanted both to shore up the royal finances and establish its control over them. Funded borrowing did both. Parliament passed taxes sufficient to pay interest on a certain amount of debt—just over £1m in the first instance—then tacked on a bit more tax to pay down the principal gradually. The monarch could borrow against this “funded” amount fairly easily, but found it hard to borrow more, which gave British debt unparalleled stability. In 1715-70 France reneged on the terms of its debt five times; Britain never missed an interest payment.

and

In 1751 Henry Pelham's Whig government pulled together the lessons learnt on bonds to create the security of the century: the 3% consol. This took its name from the fact that it paid 3% on a £100 par value and consolidated the terms of a variety of previous issues. The consols had no maturity; in theory they would keep paying £3 a year forever.

But then--

By the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, the debts of the British government reached £745m. But instead of calamity and national bankruptcy, the rise in debt simply brought a hunger for more investments. As the government itself stopped issuing new bonds, and started retiring old ones through the sinking fund, investors turned first to foreign-government securities in the 1820s and then to shares in the new, capital-intensive companies, such as railroads, leading the industrialisation of the 19th century. Both markets were highly speculative, to say the least. Foreign-government debt included bonds from one entirely fictitious country, Poyais, and most of the new industrial ventures failed.

One of the recurring themes in, say, 1880's-1930's fiction you'll see is how a wealthy family will become impoverished due to unwise failed speculation. Because slightly before your time period-- during the character's father's/grandfather's time, like in Regency fiction-- government bonds would have been a safe and secure and reliable investment, but by the time you get to the 1850's, there's a wide variety of options, but many of them are unprofitable, if not outright scams.

There's a big difference between the nobility (the titled aristocracy, ranking below royalty, but above commoners) and the Upper Class, because there's the money bucket and the social-class bucket, and the two buckets aren't necessarily connected. But it's not until 1894 that the upper classes got hit hard with death duties--- having to pay inheritance taxes--- on top of the usual difficulties of keeping a fortune intact.

So, at the first post, you were talking about nobility/upper class, and at the last post, you were talking about the upper/middle class. Those are three very distinct things, and if circumstances compel someone from a high status to take on a profession or a job that's beneath their station, they generally try to be discreet about it and work under a pseudonym so as not to dishonor their real name. :) But if they're people of means, they are less likely to work as we think of the 9-5--- they're more likely to exist as "a private gentleman."

What you might do is find an old copy of one of the Peerage books, and flip through it for fun. See what kinds of occupations tend to be listed, and which family members tend to follow them. It's been a long time since I've looked at one, but I think in general, only the status-enhancing occupations will be listed. So you can be confident knowing that those are "safe" occupations for a gentleman to engage in.

For example, looking at a random page available for free online from Burke's--- it shows that Stephen Abbott b. 1954 is a director and a producer and owns film companies. So to our eyes, that confers status--- unlike being an airplane mechanic or teaching third grade.

If you have an Ancestry account, you can look directly at a database of "Daughters of Peers Married to Commoners." I don't know how far back it goes, but you can get an idea of what professions/occupations were "safe" or "respectable" for a well-bred young lady to marry into, especially if he was able to provide her with a lifestyle to which she wished to become accustomed. ;)

Or you can flip through "Kelly's Handbook to the Titles, Landed, & Official Classes" (1875) for a list of what "The Upper Ten Thousand" look like, and see how some of them passed their time. (Judge of the supreme court at Calcutta. Commissioner of the police of the city of London. Honorary physician to the Queen. Deputy-master of the mint. Governor of Bombay. Register of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. Assistant under-secretary for war. Finance minister of Canada. Tutor to the Duke of Edingburgh. And so on.) And then you can figure out which of those career paths are hereditary, or can at least give his son a boost up in life. For example, while someone couldn't guarantee his son would be Physician to the Queen, he could encourage his son to be a fashionable doctor. Someone couldn't guarantee his son would follow him as Secretary to the Railway Department, but could encourage him to be an engineer and get a position as an official. Someone couldn't guarantee his son would follow him as Vice-Consul in the Delta of the Danube, Turkey, but he's certainly got connections to get him a good situation in the Foreign Office.
 
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benbenberi

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In mid-19c Britain there were a limited number of professions that a gentleman could pursue without seriously lowering his status. The law, the clergy, the military, medicine (not surgery), and government service were the principal ones. Outside of that, men of the upper class were expected to gain their income from their property and investments. Social status and wealth did not necessarily travel together.

Also worth noting, the "nobility" in England was an extremely small sliver of the upper class -- only the titled individuals who sat as "peers" in the House of Lords were included. Not their wives, not their children, not their extended families. Those were all legally commoners, even the ones who were granted courtesy titles. If they were politically inclined, you would find them in the House of Commons. This had always been the case in Britain, a major point of legal & political difference from the Continent (where a privileged class of nobility included the equivalent of not only the families of titled peers but also of the non-titled landed gentry who made up the bulk of the British upper class).

In addition to the great resources lonestarlibrarian mentions, I recommend you might want read some of the novels of Anthony Trollope -- he was writing in this period & a little later and paid a lot of attention to the interplay of money, rank, and ambition among the upper and middle classes. Can You Forgive Her? and Phineas Finn are good places to start, or The Small House at Allington or The Claverings.
 
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