Law and Government in England during the Long Eighteenth Century: From Consent to Command by David Lemmings (review)

This is an enlightening and detailed study, ambitious in its scope and depth. David Lemmings has produced an excellent body of research on law and governance in the eighteenth century and his vast knowledge is reflected in this book. The main theme of the book is that throughout the ‘long’ eighteenth century – beginning with the new Parliament after the Glorious Revolution and ending with the demise of the Hanoverian era – there was reduced public participation in the law. Lemmings’s prime focus is on the changing of human conditions rather than on legal history and substantive law. This change is highlighted by the decline of popular participation, the increase in professional administration, and the direct application of legislation.

After the Glorious Revolution, there was a need for the consent of the people; however, throughout the eighteenth century there was a greater desire by the judiciary and the government to command them instead. The Quarter Sessions were the place for trials by jury, but they increasingly became a venue for elite causes and the rule of law evolved into an administrative process. More frequently across the century, crimes were judged by justices of the peace, rather than facing trials by jury, so that judgements were often made purely on the justice’s personal interpretation of the evidence.

Not only was there less participation in the law through the consensus of trials by jury, there were also fewer people resorting to the law for settlement. Lemmings demonstrates that there was a decline in private litigation in this period, which he attributes to rising court costs and the judiciary’s lack of interest in dealing with issues of the common people. There is evidence that marginal groups in English society were losing power and judicial support. As a result of the loss of a broad national clientele for the law courts, there was a reduction in the range of civic voices being heard, that in turn reduced litigation to a form of government discourse, which was a conversation dominated by members of elite groups. In short, the court system became a tool of the elite, resulting in the further marginalisation of other sectors of society.

In the contemporary media, there were also changes in the perception and discussion of social problems. Outraged newspaper reports suggested there was an increase in degenerative behaviours among the working classes. Popular reports and commentaries of alleged crime waves demonstrated the criminality and the moral failings of the working classes. There were calls by the middling classes for punitive measures to be implemented against criminal behaviour, leading eventually to the establishment of a professional police force and a new criminal justice system as administrative tools for the purpose of command. Parliament made laws that supported the elites of society who regarded popular participation and agency in government with distaste.

Lemmings gives many interesting examples to illustrate his arguments, but at times the conditions of social change are not considered in enough detail. For example, although the legal side of enclosure that affected small property holders being compelled to submit to the interests of larger landowners is considered, the urbanisation that resulted from enclosures is not taken into account. Enclosures and the urbanisation were certainly important contributors to England’s human problems during the eighteenth century.

The book’s major premise of the transformation of the eighteenth-century legal system from consent to command is well supported and coherently argued. Lemmings draws on a large range of primary sources: legal records, statutes, and legal commentary, as well as newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, novels, poetry, and images. It is perhaps regrettable that none of the pamphlet illustrations depicting the unruly and criminally intentioned masses or any of the other contemporary images that were so influential in this context have been included. Nonetheless, this book reveals a fascinating aspect of eighteenth-century...