Pettyfogging to Respectability

PETTYFOGGING TO RESPECTABILITY A HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROFESSION OF SOLICITOR IN THE MANCHESTER AREA 1800-1914 A thesis submitted to the University of Salford for the degree of Ph.D. by Vivienne Rose Parrott Department of Politics & Contemporary History 1992 ii A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one would find fault with what he has done. Cardinal John Henry Newman Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 A Note on Sources 1 1.2 A Summary of Other Studies in this Area 2 1.3 Format of this thesis 9 2 A Profession of Long Standing 12 2.1 Attorneys/Solicitors: a background to the terms 13 2.2 Politics and Power 20 2.3 Communication and Organization 26 3 A Time of Crisis: The Profession under Threat 34 3.1 The Manchester Law Association 35 3.2 Provincial Law Societies Association: Failure or evolution 47 3.3 A Question of Honour: the formation of the Metropolitan and Provin- cial Law Societies Association 53 3.4 Militant Attorneys: the relationship between the industrial experi- ence and the level of militancy amongst attorneys in Lincoln and Manchester 62 4 The Route to Respectability 70 4.1 Discipline 73 4.2 Malpractice in the Salford Hundred Court 83 4.3 Educational Provision 88 5 Work: Pettyfogging to Respectability 112 5.1 Power and Pressure 114 5.2 Progress and Pressure 138 iv 5.3 Respectability and Pressure 142 5.4 Respectability, Remuneration and Consolidation 146 6 Solicitors and Society 155 6.1 Professional Interest Paramount 156 6.2 The Position of the Manchester Solicitor in Local Society 166 7 Summary and Conclusions 191 7.1 Summary 191 7.2 Conclusions: the Creation of a Myth 195 A Apprenticeship Agreement 201 B Extract from an attorney's precedent book dating from around the 1720s 206 C Slater, Heelis & Co. 210 D Certificate of Practice 212 E Milne & Parry 214 F Comparative Documents 215 G Points of Practice 218 H Slater-Heelis Workforce 224 I Gill, Radford & Co. 230 J Bibliography 231 List of Tables 2.1 London Agents (based on Law Lists 1820) 27 2.2 Numbers and Percentage of Manchester Attorneys in membership of the Manchester Law Society (based on Law Lists & Street Directories) 27 3.1 PLSA rates of subscriptions levied from local law societies 51 3.2 Number of Manchester Solicitors in Membership of Law Societies, Data for Figure 3 1 59 4.1 Data for Figure 4.1. 71 4.2 Data for Figure 4 2 99 6.1 Law Clerks' Friendly Society. Subscriptions levied and Assets Amounted 184 List of Figures 3.1 Number of Manchester solicitors in membership of law societies. 59 3.2 Map of England c. 1840 61 4.1 Number of Manchester solicitors per 10,000 of population. Calcula- tions based on the Law Lists 1820-1900 71 4.2 Number of Students attending Law Classes at Owen's College com- pared with the number of Practices, Solicitors and total Student numbers. 99 vi 6.1 Power Shadow illustrating the inverse of influence to position in the professional hierarchy 172 6.2 The Place of the Manchester Law Association within a Societal Context 174 6.3 Possible Community Links arising from Membership of the Manch- ester Union Club 177 -. Acknowledgements I thank John Garrard, the Department of Politics and Contemporary History, Max, Isabel, and Davin Parrott, David Richardson and Tony Grand for their help and sup- port during my period of study. I am particularly grateful to the staff of Chetham's Library, Manchester Central Reference Library, John Rylands University Library, the Portico, and the Manchester Law Library for their help. A special note of gratitude is due to the Manchester Law Society for their generosity and courtesy throughout my period of study. I would also like to thank all those individual solicitors whom I approached and express my particular thanks to Slater Heelis Sz Co. and to Jeremy Wilkinson. vii Abstract Pettyfogging to Respectability A history of the development of the Profession of Solicitor in the Manchester area 1800-1914. The thesis presents a social history of the development of solicitors as a professional group in Manchester during the period 1800-1914. This is the first work on the history of Manchester solicitors and one of the few histories of the profession outside London. It is based on primary source material which has not previously been subject to investigation. The study explores the development of solicitors through the period by examining their reaction to the pressures imposed by an increas- ingly industrial and urbanizing society. It considers the importance of the role of provincial solicitors in the development of the profession nationally and the part Manchester solicitors played in this development. The relationship between Manch- ester solicitors and the community and their place in the local societal structure is also examined. viii Abbreviations MLS Manchester Law Society (1809-1815). MLA Manchester Law Association (1838 to date). In 1871 the Association was incorporated (under the Companies Act of 1862) becoming the Manchester Incorporated Law Association (the word "Limited" being omitted by licence of the Board of Trade under the act of 1867). In 1910 the Manchester Law Association became the Manchester Law Society. PLSA Provincial Law Societies Association (1844-1850). MPLSA Metropolitan and Provincial Law Societies Association (1847-1873). ILS Incorporated Law Society UK • 2nd June 1825 Scheme approved by subscribers for a Law Institution. • 16th February 1827 Institute legally constituted • 22nd December 1831 Incorporation by Royal Charter — title becomes "The Society of Attorneys, Solicitors, Proctors and others not being Bar- risters practising in the Courts of Law 86 Equity in the United Kingdom". • 1833 Following a decision by the Management Committee the Society becomes known as "The Incorporated Law Society of the United Kingdom", except when the formal title is technically necessary. • 1903 Title changed to "The Law Society" by Charter. CS Chetham Society MCRL Manchester Central Reference Library PL Portico Library JRUL John Rylands University Library APLE Association for the Promotion of Legal Education. ix Chapter 1 Introduction "No one outside the profession can have any idea of the work which, day after day, forms the curriculum of a solicitor" Tilney Barton Solicitor Manchester 1892 Hidden behind a veil of time, ignorance and mystique, the every day concerns of the Victorian solicitor are as little known today as they were at the close of the nineteenth century. Just as unknown are the factors which linked solicitors into the social and cultural processes of the local community. The profession of which Tilney Barton was a part changed dramatically during the period with which this study is concerned. To understand something of the nature and history of Barton's profession this thesis examines the changing role and position of Manchester solicitors within the local societal structure. The first such study of its kind; its purpose is, through an examination of the past, to lift the veil on the origins of the modern profession. 1.1 A Note on Sources It is only in recent years that research has enabled us to understand a little more about the history of the profession outside London. In the case of Manchester solicitors a lack of secondary source material required that the framework for the construction of this study be derived solely from primary sources. This task was facilitated by the unique completeness of the records of the Manchester Law Society 1 2 which provided the skeletal outline for this social history. A variety of primary source material, drawn mainly from local libraries and legal practices, provided the flesh on the bones. The records of the Manchester Law Society date back to its foundation in 1838 and include minutes of annual, quarterly and specially called meetings. Various sub- committees were set up to monitor such areas of concern as education, discipline and the proposed introduction of legislation relating to the legal profession. Records of the work of some of these sub-committees are extant in the form of notes of meetings. This material indicated the direction for further research whether, for example, in the Manchester Central Reference Library or amongst the archive records of a legal practice such as Slater Heelis and Co. Diaries, correspondence and working papers have all contributed towards the construction of a social history of the lives and interests of solicitors at work in nineteenth century Manchester. 1.2 A Summary of Other Studies in this Area Texts, from a range of research disciplines, have been used to inform and inspire this research. For the most part these have included sociological, legal and historical studies which deal with professions and the process of professionalization. They incorporate material drawn from a range of academic provinces which include legal, sociological and historical studies of methods of professionalization; the development of professions generally and of individual professions in particular. Such texts have provided the political, economic and social context in which the evolution of \ solicitors have been considered. Sociological and legal histories of the profession are basically divided into two categories: those authors who deal with professionalization as a phenomenon and its application to a variety of occupational groups and those who have dealt specifically with the legal profession. We will now examine these in turn and at the same time draw out their relevance to the themes under investigation in this thesis. 3 The nature of the relationship, standing and influence of the legal profession which other studies reveal (whether at the individual or at the group level) raised questions of fundamental importance to this study.

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