Portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie, by Louis Gabriel Blanchet, 1738
Over the Water – over the Hill
Bill Hartley, in the land of lost causes
There is romance to lost causes that people find attractive. In the North of England, which has plenty to choose from, there is a society devoted to the Jacobites. Judging by the post nominals held by some members, this is a serious historical society which has attracted eminent scholars. However, an acquaintance of mine, a retired academic, tells me that it has a fundamentalist wing.
Not many of us lie awake at night struggling with the question of a monarch appointed by the state versus one put there by the deity. According to my acquaintance though, there are members of this society who believe in the divine right of kings. Clearly, in Britain, there is a group to meet the needs of almost any opinion, no matter how outdated or odd.
In the past, it might take a long time for kindred spirits to find each other and form a club. Things happen more quickly these days aided by social media. For fans of lost causes it is also worth looking on Facebook at the various Jeremy Corbyn supporters’ pages. At first it all seemed light hearted. There was a pre-election call for supporters to get out and help in a marginal seat. No-one seemed to mind when I posted a message saying that I couldn’t find one in County Durham. Post-election, the messages began to change, and the Branch Davidians retreated into the online equivalent of the Waco compound. Originally, messages had been of the simple and supportive kind: Mr Corbyn, decent chap, misrepresented in the media, man of principle etc. etc. The sort of thing you might expect from people rallying behind their leader. Subsequently, they took on a darker hue. Continue reading
Women’s Legal Landmarks
Mary Wollstonecraft, Original Stories from Real Life, Illustrated by William Blake
Women’s Legal Landmarks
Women’s Legal Landmarks, ed Erica Rackley and Rosemary Auchmuty, Hart Publishing, 2018, ISBN 978-1-78225-977-0, reviewed by Angela Ellis-Jones
This collection of short articles by mainly female authors marks the centenary of 1919, the year which saw the entry of women into the legal profession. Each chapter covers a ‘landmark’, a significant event in legal history as it affected women. The format for each chapter is four sections on Context, The Landmark, What Happened Next, and Significance. The landmarks are drawn from the four nations of the United Kingdom. The first chapter deals with the laws of the Welsh King Hywel Dda (early tenth century). Hywel codified the laws of Wales, which dealt with crime, property, tort, contract and the position of women: ‘Whilst they did not provide equality, the laws are noted and recognised for their enlightened attitude to women’ (26) – far more so than in many other European countries at the time, including England. The next landmark is Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), the fons et origo of the modern feminist movement, which called for equality and the extension of civil and political rights to women. The nineteenth century saw one of the most important of these rights extended, the Married Women’s Property Act 1882 (covered here), which enabled a married woman to hold all the property brought by her to the marriage or subsequently acquired as her ‘separate property’.
The great majority of these legal landmarks covered occurred in the twentieth century. They include pieces of legislation e.g. The Representation of the People Act 1918, which enfranchised women over 30, the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919, which enabled women to enter the professions and public functions, and events e.g. the Dagenham Car Plant Strike 1968, when women won a pay rise which led to the passing of the Equal Pay Act 1970. Continue reading →
Share this:
Like this: