UK legal history – News, Research and Analysis – The Conversation

August 8, 2023

Infanticide: vulnerable mothers who kill their babies can be granted leniency – so why is this historic law being rejected in favour of harsher punishment?

Heather Montgomery, The Open University

The harsher verdicts imposed on two child mothers shows why the UK’s law of infanticide remains so important, more than a century after it was introduced

A scale model of a statue dedicated to Lady Rhondda has been revealed by the sculptor, Jane Robbins. AV Morgan/Wikimedia

March 7, 2023

Lady Rhondda: the little‑known suffragette whose efforts led to greater equality for women

Sharon Thompson, Cardiff University

Lady Rhondda was a suffragette, a business leader and an editor. A statue of her is expected to be revealed in Newport, south Wales, next year.

A gun rights advocate walks through the rotunda of the Kentucky Capitol. Some lawyers argue that the 1689 English Bill of Rights created the legal basis for public carry of weapons in the U.S. Bryan Woolston/Getty Images

November 4, 2021

Why are medieval weapons laws at the center of a US Supreme Court case?

Jennifer Tucker, Wesleyan University

Many gun rights advocates claim that the right to carry guns is a universal right that has spanned centuries and nations. History tells a different story.

Judge’s copy: the copy of the novel belonging to the judge in the case was acquired by Bristol University in 2019. By courtesy of the University of Bristol Library Special Collections DM2936, photograph by Jamie Carstairs.

November 2, 2020

The Chatterley Trial 60 years on: a court case that secured free expression in 1960s Britain

Lois Bibbings, University of Bristol

The obscenity trial was a landmark decision that provided a “public good” defence for serious literature.

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