The British and Their Laws in the Eighteenth Century

What did the rule of law mean to eighteenth-century people and how did it connect with changing experiences of law in all their bewildering complexity? Given the powerful claims for their importance in the governance of Georgian society it is appropriate that over the last quarter century social and legal historians have engaged productively with law and legal institutions. But despite widespread agreement about <I>Law's</I> significance as a key to unlock so much which was central to contemporary life taken as a whole this work offers a fragmented picture of the <I>Laws</I> in their social meanings and actions. <I>The British and their Laws in the Eighteenth Century</I> contributes fresh analyses of law in England and British settler colonies c. 1680-1830. The authors consider broadly the issues of participation central-local relations and the maintenance of common law traditions in the context of increasing legislative interventions and grants of statutory administrative powers. David Lemmings suggests that viewed from these perspectives popular relations with law were transformed. Legislation expanded the province of administrative authority out of all proportion while the reach of the common law and its communal traditions of governance diminished at least outside British North America. Here perhaps were the outlines of a legal regime appropriate for an imperial state.