1st Edition
Master and Servant Law Chartists, Trade Unions, Radical Lawyers and the Magistracy in England, 1840–1865
By Christopher Frank
Copyright 2010
294 Pages
by
Routledge
294 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
In recent years, social and legal historians have called into question the degree to which the labour that fuelled and sustained industrialization in England was actually ’free’. The corpus of statutes known as master and servant law has been a focal point of interest: throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, at the behest of employers, mine owners, and manufacturers, Parliament... Read more
Contents: Introduction: 'constitutional law versus justices' justice'; The introduction of the 1844 Master and Servant Bill: 'the statutes relating to master and servant are nearly useless'; The defeat of the 1844 Master and Servant Bill: 'triumph for labour! ... the damnable Bill crushed'; Trade union legal challenges to master and servant prosecutions: 'the value of law when honestly administered'; The Warrington cases, 1846-1847: 'he might almost as well be without trial'; Trades of Sheffield against Dr Wilson Overend, 1842-1847: 'I hope his prescriptions are better than his law'; The reform of magistrates' summary jurisdiction, 1843-1854: 'the imperious necessity of affording greater protection to justices'; The trades of Staffordshire against T. B. Rose, 1842-1851:'let them but one of them come before me and I'll commit him'
Biography
Dr Christopher Frank is Assistant Professor in History at the University of Manitoba, Canada.
'[Christopher] Frank offers perspectives on the legal system, the mechanisms of legal change, and the interactions between the law and the labour movement that many other accounts lack. The book is invaluable reading for labour historians, legal historians, and political historians of Victorian England.' Victorian Studies '[W]hat Frank does superbly is present highly complex material in a way that is not only well structured and smoothly written but also makes excellent use of the available source materials... this book is recommended reading for any academic or scholar interested in the mechanics of centre-local government relations and its struggle in getting to grips with trade union protest.' Labour History Review 'The overall significance of this legal framework in the development of labour relations in the nineteenth century is likely to remain a contested domain to which Frank’s detailed contextual analysis of cases in the mid-nineteenth century makes a valuable contribution.' Historical Studies in Industrial Relations '... an important contribution to the legal history of nineteenth-century England.' Law & History Review
