Book contents
- History and the Law
- History and the Law
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- A Beginning: ‘History’, by Stephen Dunn
- 1 Its Ziggy Shape
- 2 Law Troubles
- 3 Letters of the Law
- 4 The Worst of It
- 5 Who Owns Maria
- 6 Sisters in Law
- 7 Hating the Law
- 8 The Kind of Law a Historian Loved
- An Ending: Not a Story
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Sisters in Law
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2020
- History and the Law
- History and the Law
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- A Beginning: ‘History’, by Stephen Dunn
- 1 Its Ziggy Shape
- 2 Law Troubles
- 3 Letters of the Law
- 4 The Worst of It
- 5 Who Owns Maria
- 6 Sisters in Law
- 7 Hating the Law
- 8 The Kind of Law a Historian Loved
- An Ending: Not a Story
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Chapter 6 uses the fictional working-class Jemima’s account of the poor laws and the laws of settlement and removal to discuss a series of cases involving poor and pauper women in interaction with the law. Material is drawn from magistrates’ proceedings and from the records of the court of King’s Bench, where some of the cases, including that of the slave servant Charlotte Howe, were sent on appeal. The judges’ (including William Blackstone and chief justice Mansfield) attitudes towards the poor laws are discussed.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- History and the LawA Love Story, pp. 130 - 161Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020