Armed with Sword and Scales
Law, Culture, and Local Courtrooms in London, 1860–1913

Explores how local courtrooms have been a common feature of everyday life and culture since the eighteenth century.

Sascha Auerbach (Author)

9781108798464, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 15 December 2022

425 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.687 kg

'Armed with Sword and Scales will become renowned, above all, for its compelling replacement of the notion of a “policeman-state” by that of a “court-going community” … Auerbach finds in the historical record little to validate an unrelievedly coercive interpretation of the police courts, and much to demonstrate the role of individual agency and the creative use of the law and its machinery.' Victor Bailey, Journal of British Studies

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.

Introduction: Courtroom Culture
1. 'Many-Coloured Scenes of Life': The Police Courts in Metropolitan Culture and Society, 1758–1860
2. 'A Ruffian Rightly Punished': Morality and Local Courtrooms in Practice and Portrayal, 1860–1880
3. 'An Evil Quarter of an Hour About the Precincts': Urban Reform and Municipal Authority in the Courtroom, 1870–1902
4. 'Two Shillings' Worth of Revenge in the Form of a Summons': The Integration of Courtrooms and Communities in London, 1882–1902
5. A Poor Woman's Court of Justice, 1882–1910
6. 'The Very Centre of Observation and Information': Constables, Magistrates, and Changing Patterns of Prosecution and Punishment, 1880–1913
Conclusion: The Historical and Cultural Legacies of the London Magistrates Courts.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], British & Irish history [HBJD1]