Criminal Law and Colonial Subject

This book looks at how the practice of law developed in early New South Wales.

Paula Jane Byrne (Author)

9780521522946, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 18 December 2003

316 pages, 16 b/w illus. 31 tables
24.6 x 18.9 x 1.7 cm, 0.57 kg

'The historian of crime can draw on this work for useful information and some insightful analysis.' Social History

1810–1830 was a crucial period in the development of New South Wales, when the legal foundations of a free-settler and emancipist society were laid. This book explores the relationship of a colonial people with English law and looks at the practice of law among the ordinary population. Paula Jane Byrne traces the boundaries between property, sexuality and violence, drawing from court records, dispositions and proceedings. She asks: what did ordinary people understand by guilt, suspicion, evidence and the term 'offence'? The book reconstructs the legal process with great detail and richness and evokes the everyday lives of people in the colony. It focuses on the different valuing of males and females and analyses the complex gender relations of the early colony. This book innovatively ties recent ideas on convict society and Australian colonial women's history to the legal, economic and social history of early New South Wales.

Author's note
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
List of figures
List of tables
1. Introduction
Part I. Law and the Person: 2. Labour
3. The house
4. The body
Part II. Offence in the Wilderness: 5. The creation of bushranging
Part III. Suspicious Characters: Police and People: 6. The structure and style of policing
7. Popular use of law
Part IV. The Court Room: 8. Deciding what was good and bad
9. Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Criminal law & procedure [LNF], Sociology & anthropology [JH], National liberation & independence, post-colonialism [HBTR], Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ]