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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Kay CrosbyORCiD
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Cambridge University Press, 2019.
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This article argues that the juror franchise became more restrictive in the years immediately after the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 had broadened the jury franchise so as to include some women. It argues that the subsequent restrictions on the jury franchise have not standardly been discussed in the literature on the twentieth century jury because of the lengths taken at the time to present these reforms as merely technical in nature. Only six months after the 1919 Act was passed, a dispute broke out at the Western assize circuit regarding the practice--apparently sanctioned in the Juries Act 1825--of towns which “possessed” their own assizes summoning jurors according to custom, rather than statute. In practice, this meant that the ten “assize boroughs” had not always observed the property qualifications when summoning their jurors. The judiciary eventually prevailed over the Home Office and a series of local officials, ending the assize boroughs’ ability to ignore the property qualifications (qualifications which kept a disproportionate number of women off the jury). This reform brought its own problems, however, and brought into focus the expense involved in following the burdensome rules for identifying jurors as set out in the 1825 Act. The solution to this secondary problem--basing juror qualification on electoral registration--excluded from jury service conscientious objectors, foreigners, and women who satisfied the property qualification rules but lived elsewhere with a male relative.
Author(s): Crosby K
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Law and History Review
Year: 2019
Volume: 37
Issue: 1
Pages: 163-207
Print publication date: 01/02/2019
Online publication date: 04/02/2019
Acceptance date: 08/05/2018
Date deposited: 08/05/2018
ISSN (print): 0738-2480
ISSN (electronic): 1939-9022
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0738248018000639
DOI: 10.1017/S0738248018000639
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