In our last blog we focused on suits for restitution of conjugal rights and how they could be used in repeat applications to the Divorce Court as a means to prove desertion in a divorce case and circumvent the usual two-year period of desertion. In this blog we’re going to continue with the theme of […]
If at first, you don’t succeed…Remarriage and the Divorce Court Read More »
![The image is of a piece of old paper with faint lines drawn horizontally and one line vertically on the left-hand side creating a margin. On the horizontal lines are words written in a flowing handwriting in black ink. The quoted words from the letter have a double quote sign at the start of every line even though the quote has not ended, and it says: ‘2. That on the 20th December 1906 I wrote my husband a letter which was as follows:- “I think I have waited long “enough to see if anything would happen and “I now ask you to tell me definitely if you “are prepared to put away this woman and “make a home for me and Jacqueline”. Such letter was address[ed] by me to my husband at his office situated at 2 Collingwood Street Newcastle-upon-Tyne where he practices as a solicitor.](https://hosting.northumbria.ac.uk/divorce_history/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/An-extract-from-a-‘Come-back-to-me-letter-described-in-an-affidavit-from-the-Dix-v.-Dix-restitution-of-conjugal-rights-petition.png)
What was a restitution of conjugal rights? Divorce was the most common form of litigation in the Divorce Court. But as we discussed in an earlier blog, there were other forms of litigation available to deal with marital discord. In this blog we’re going to focus on one of those, a restitution of conjugal rights,
Last week we got to an exciting point in the project, with a visit to our Project Partners, The National Archives at their site in Kew. We, the Principal Investigator, Dr Jennifer Aston and Senior Research Assistant, Dr Diane Ranyard, spent 5 days exploring the archives. So why were we there? Our trip was a
New Year, New Stage of the Project! Our visit to The National Archives, Kew Read More »
On Saturday 1 January 1898, Mrs Amelia Reade [referred to as Maud Amelia in newspaper reports] wrote a short letter (see image below) to her estranged husband Beaumont Russell Reade in which she said ‘I voluntarily confess to having misconducted myself with E. Durand on several occasions and I am willing to sign a document
Content Note: Please be aware that this blog post contains descriptions of abuse that readers may find distressing. If Lucy’s story resonates, you can find relevant links and contact details for organisations who can offer advice and support at the end of this blog post. While this blog does explore a divorce case from the
Finding the Words: Descriptions of Domestic Abuse in the Victorian Divorce Court Read More »
Description: 26 Gloucester Place, Brighton [The location of the adultery between Gwyneth Alice Hoos and James Hughes Massie]. Source Citation: Wikimedia Commons contributors, ‘File:26 Gloucester Place, Brighton (IoE Code 480742).JPG’, Wikimedia Commons, 24 May 2023, 23:21 UTC, <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:26_Gloucester_Place,_Brighton_(IoE_Code_480742).JPG&oldid=766735062> [accessed 11 December 2024] On 16 April 1917, a petition for divorce was filed at the Principal
The Mysterious Affair of Adultery in the Divorce Court Read More »
On an unseasonably warm Wednesday in May 1825, Miss Margaret Shands travelled to St Saviour’s Church, Southwark, to marry mariner, Alexander Christie. They set up home together on Watling Street in the City of London and were joined by a daughter, Rebecca in 1827, and a son, William, in 1830. The Christie’s marriage (perhaps unsurprisingly,
Of all the forms of litigation that unhappily married spouses could pursue in the Divorce Court between 1858 and 1923, divorce is probably the most recognisable today. For clarity, divorce is a form of permanent legal separation that allows both spouses to remarry. It was one of only two options available to unhappily married husbands
D.I.V.O.R.C.E. Legally Severing the Bonds of Marriage Read More »
Come along to the book launch as part of the Women’s History Seminar Series at the Institute of Historical Research (or join online-via Zoom) for Dr Jennifer Aston and Professor Oliver Anderson’s new book: Deserted Wives and Economic Divorce in 19th-Century England and Wales: For Wives Alone. In this seminar we will be celebrating
In our last blog we outlined how to find Divorce Court records, so that you can use them in your own research, whether that’s for academic study or to explore your own family history. Once you start to delve inside the case files, you’ll find some fascinating information that can tell you a great deal
What’s in a divorce case file? Read More »
