Power and Professions in Britain, 1700-1850

281 Pages·1999·1.74 MB·English

by  Penelo Corfield

POWER AND THE PROFESSIONS
IN BRITAIN 1700–1850
Image rights not available
The Conspirators – anonymous print (c. 1760). A parson, lawyer and doctor meet by moonlight
in the churchyard – with sexton and raven in attendance – to calculate the professional gains
to be made from human mortality.
Published by permission of the British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings
POWER AND THE
PROFESSIONS IN
BRITAIN 1700–1850
Penelope J. Corfield
London and New York
First published 1995
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
First published in paperback 2000
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.
Disclaimer: For copyright reasons, some images in the original version of this
book are not available for inclusion in the eBook.
© 1995 Penelope J. Corfield
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Corfield, P. J.
Power and the professions in Britain, 1700–1850 / Penelope J. Corfield.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Professions–Social aspects–Great Britain–History–18th century. 2. Professions–Social
aspects–Great Britain–History–19th century. 3. Power (Social sciences)
I. Title.
[HT690.G7C67 1999]
305.5'53'0941–dc21 99–33041
ISBN 0-415-22265-6 (Print Edition)
ISBN 0-203-01885-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-17344-9 (Glassbook Format)
CONTENTS
Figures vi
Tables vii
Preface ix
1 POWER 1
2 MYSTERY 18
3 SATIRE 42
4 LAWYERS 70
5 CLERICS 102
6 DOCTORS 137
7 TREND 174
8 ETHOS 200
9 ADVANCEMENT 223
10 POWER/KNOWLEDGE? 243
Select Bibliography 253
Index 260
v
FIGURES
1.1 The old order changes (1832) 9
2.1 The Triple Plea (c.1760) 22
2.2 Sarah Mapp from Hogarth’s ‘Company of Undertakers’ (1737) 35
3.1 A Flat between Two Sharps (c.1760) 50
3.2 The First Day of Term: Or the Devil among the Lawyers
(c.1760) 51
3.3 The Vicar and Moses (1784) 53
3.4 The Sailor and the Field Preacher (early nineteenth century) 55
3.5 Hogarth’s ‘Company of Undertakers’ (1737) 58
3.6 The Sailor and the Quack Doctor (1807) 60
3.7 The Pedagogue (1790) 61
3.8 The Long Story (1782) 64
4.1 Extract from Bohun’s handbook The Practising Attorney (1724) 75
4.2 A Peep into Westminster Hall on a Call of Serjeants (1781) 87
4.3 A Limb of the Law (1802) 89
5.1 Detail from ‘The Impostor or Obstetric Dispute’ (1814) with a Seal of
Election issued by Joanna Southcott (1803) 107
5.2 The Established Church/The True Doctrine (1818) 111
5.3 The Rising of the Inferior Clergy (1768) 127
6.1 The Doctor too many for Death (1787) 142
6.2 The College of Physicians (1808–10) 150
6.3 Certificate of Insanity (1831) 163
7.1 The Hope of the Family (c.1770) 175
7.2 The Second Cadet Barracks in the Arsenal (later
eighteenth century) 190
8.1 Earliest record of the Society of Gentlemen Practisers in the
Courts of Law and Equity (1740) 208
vi
TABLES
2.1 Estimated numbers of male heads of household with
professional occupations in England and Wales, 1688,
1750 and 1803 29
2.2 Men with professional occupations in Great Britain and
Ireland, 1851 32
2.3 Women with professional occupations in Great Britain and
Ireland, 1851 34
4.1 Attorney enrolments before the law courts, England and
Wales, 1729–31 79
4.2 Attorneys in England and Wales, working singly and in
partnerships, 1780 82
4.3 Numbers of attorneys and barristers in Great Britain and
Ireland, 1700–1851 91
5.1 Numbers of clergymen (all denominations) in Great Britain
and Ireland, 1700–1851 110
5.2 Religious groups with licensed venues for worship in England
and Wales, December 1688 – June 1852 115–6
5.3 Men in holy orders in Ireland, 1851 120
5.4 Men in holy orders in Scotland, 1851 122
5.5 Men in holy orders in England and Wales, 1851 128
6.1 Initial composition of the ‘General Council of Medical
Education and Regulation of the United Kingdom’, known as
the General Medical Council, 1858 148
6.2 Composition of the medical professions in Great Britain and
Ireland, 1851 158
6.3 Gender of the medical professions in Great Britain and
Ireland, 1851 159
6.4 Number and distribution of institutions providing medical
care (excluding lunatic asylums) in Great Britain and Ireland,
1783 and 1852 162
vii
TABLES
8.1 Rules of the Huntingdonshire Medical Society, 1793–1803 207
8.2 Geographical distribution of attorneys and doctors in
eighteenth-century England and Wales 217
viii
PREFACE
If goodwill alone were enough, it would be relatively easy, though not totally plain
sailing, to write books. But the process requires a large amount of undivided time and
concentration that is difficult to find, in this age of intensive teaching and burgeoning
academic administration. As a result, two periods of study leave, which were devoted
to the development of the arguments presented here, have proved invaluable. The
Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton provided stimulating company and time for
cogitation in the Autumn Semester 1987; and thanks go especially to Inga Clendinnen,
Lawrence Duggan, John Elliott, Josep Fradera, Charles McClelland, James Van Horn
Melton, Peter Paret, Maurice Slavin and Lawrence Stone for many good discussions. In
addition, the British Nuffield Foundation generously awarded a Social Science Fellowship,
tenable in London, for the academic year 1989–90. That conferred a true lifeline, without
which the whole project would have stalled.
There are other practical and intellectual debts that it is also a pleasure to acknowledge.
Colleagues in the History Department at Royal Holloway furnish a supportive and
stimulating work environment; and students kindly humour my prediliction for
debating the definition of historical terms. In addition, many friends have provided
references and arguments, including Peter Clark, Joy Dixon, Eric Evans, Tony Henderson,
Tim Hitchcock, Geoffrey Holmes, Julian Hoppit, Ludmilla Jordanova, Serena Kelly,
Charles Medawar, Simon Renton, John Styles, John Turner, Amanda Vickery and Tim
Wales. In addition, Arthur Burns, Margaret Pelling and David Sugarman have criticised
individual chapters; and Simon Renton provided advice on eighteenth-century legislative
procedures.
Research seminars at Lancaster and Stockholm Universities have also responded to
early versions of this material with stimulating discussions. In practical terms, the
Leverhulme Trust generously awarded funding to facilitate the computerisation of data
relating to the professions and Tim Hitchcock supplied timely technical aid. Similarly,
the research fund of Royal Holloway helped to initiate the creation of an ‘Attornies’
ix