Compassion without compensation :the novelists and Baron Bramwell

Abstract

My purpose in this thesis is to explore the work of Nineteenth Century Condition of England novelists and to identify how and to what extent they addressed issues of industrial safety and used their skills to identify problems. I looked at the developing law of negligence over the period 1830-1880 with particular reference to compensation for injured workpeople and to the role played by the common law judiciary. My researches revealed that one judge, Baron Bramwell, carried great influence but used the common law as a tool to prevent injured employees from recovering damages. I identified Charles Dickens, who was acquainted with Bramwell, as the novelist who had the skills and outlets to make the greatest impression in the fight for reform. I consider whether there was any common ground between Dickens and Bramwell and thus seek to use Literature as a comfortable adjunct to Legal History in telling the story of the law’s development over the period in the field of industrial safety and of the search for an humane compensation system.