Projecting Law Reform: Jeremy Bentham’s networks in Hanoverian Britain, c.1790-1830

Bentham’s relationship with the late Hanoverian law reform movements has been oversimplified by recent historiography as futile and unimportant. This thesis shifts the focus from official and public politics to Bentham’s epistolary networks, aiming to reconstruct Bentham’s private campaigning in the context of an increasingly vibrant reform culture.

From the late 1780s, the patronage of Lord Shelburne extended Bentham’s political connections. A group of lawyers, politicians, and writers became interested in Bentham’s innovative ideas and schemes. By the late 1820s, Bentham had established cross-party networks to sustain radical law reform ideas. The first three chapters will explore the formation of these networks, and the reception of Bentham’s ideas, by analysing his relationship with the Whig lawyer Samuel Romilly, the Tory politician Robert Peel, and the Irish agitator Daniel O’Connell. It will be argued that Bentham’s private persuasion pushed these well-connected political leaders to clarify their positions.

From the mid-1820s, the politics of law reform became much complicated after the government changed to a more open attitude, and many politicians, lawyers, and writers joined the debate. The increase of participants did not make Bentham’s advocacy of radical law reform any easier. The private contact with Peel made Bentham recognise that he was marginalised in official politics. He changed strategy and appealed for popular support instead. Meanwhile, the correspondence with O’Connell encouraged Bentham to establish a popular association comparable to the Catholic Association. The fourth chapter will explore Bentham’s mobilisation of the Law Reform Association between December 1829 and June 1830. The last chapter is an analysis of Bentham’s impact on the younger generation of lawyers between 1827 and 1833 through a legal periodical called The Jurist. The identified authors and articles, and their references to Bentham, suggest a wider acceptance of Bentham’s philosophy and ideology than historians have argued.