Woolmington in Context: The Excavation of a Case

ABSTRACT The 1935 judgment in Woolmington v Director of Public Prosecutions established the ‘golden thread’ principle that, in general, the prosecution bears the burden of proof in criminal trials. This is the ‘cardinal principle of the criminal law’, not just in England and Wales, but right across the common law world. It is a principle that is now largely taken for granted, but when Woolmington was decided, it represented a sharp and largely unexpected break with past authority. Drawing on a ‘legal archaeology’ methodology, this paper steps outside the limited and, in some respects, misleading facts contained in the official law reports and considers Woolmington in its broader socio-economic and political context, and with particular reference to important gender issues that arise. It seeks, thereby, to improve our understanding of this revolutionary judgment and how it came to be made at this juncture.


Introduction
This article is concerned with the important judgment of Woolmington v Director of Public Prosecutions 1 in 1935 (hereafter 'Woolmington') in which Viscount Sankey LC (hereafter 'Sankey') made what has become one of the most famous statements in the common law: Throughout the web of the English Criminal Law one golden thread is always to be seen, that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt subject to what I have already said as to the defence of insanity and subject also to any statutory exception. If, at the end of and on the whole of the case, there is a reasonable doubt, created by the evidence given by either the prosecution or the prisoner, as to whether the prisoner killed the deceased with a malicious intention, the prosecution has not made out the case and the prisoner is entitled to an acquittal. No matter what the charge or where the trial, the principle that Brian Simpson famously challenged legal academics to take facts seriously and argued that they should seek to gain a 'real understanding' of cases by 'journeying well outside' 14 the official law reports to examine the context in which they occur. He termed this 'legal archaeology', 15 which he defined as the 'excavation' of a case in order to 'make sense' of it as an event in history and in the evolution of the law. 16 This is a methodology that conducts a 'microscopic examination' of the facts of a case and a 'macroscopic assessment' of the significance of what has been uncovered. 17 As archaeologists attempt to reconstruct a site from clues embedded in the earth, legal archaeologists reconstruct the context of a reported opinion from clues embedded in alternative accounts of a case, contained in trial transcripts, newspaper reports and interviews. Therefore, 'beginning where most legal scholarship ends', 18 legal archaeology posits that these 'unofficial' accounts of a case can reveal important gaps and distortions in the 'official' statement of facts in the law report. 19 Moreover, it insists that the focus on appellate opinions 'while excellent for stimulating analysis, distorts what actually happened' and that it is only by looking more widely that a case can be properly understood. 20 This article takes up Simpson's challenge and draws upon a broad range of materials, including the transcript from Woolmington's trial at Bristol Assizes, Sankey's personal papers, and contemporary newspaper reports and articles. It seeks to make sense of Woolmington by stepping outside the law reports to 'unmask' 21 the key individuals concerned and by analysing the socio-economic and political context of the case. Sankey, who was both a keen law reformer and a committed socialist, appears to have been influenced by political concerns when delivering his judgment. However, paradoxically, although the judgment modernized the law on the burden of proof, we should be mindful that some very old ideas about the place of women in society appear to have contributed indirectly to Woolmington's successful appeal. In view of the convergence between legal archaeology methodology and feminist legal theory posited by Threedy,22 it is not surprising that this should be uncovered in our excavation of the case.
Moreover, this further underlines the importance of legal archaeology methodology, as the impact of these ideas is easily overlooked if the contents of the official law report are relied on as the main source of the facts of the case.
The work of legal archaeology has sometimes been criticized for being an entertaining but, ultimately, 'indulgent deviation' and, therefore, as having only 'marginal' value. 23 However, in rejecting this, legal archaeologists acknowledge that it is never enough to simply find 'neat stuff' and insist that the information which is unearthed must be 'processed' in order to provide new insights into the law. 24 It is contended that the contextualization of Woolmington undertaken here is no indulgence. It provides a 'qualitatively different' 25 understanding of the case compared to that contained in the official law report, and fulfils an important function in helping to explain more fully the circumstances that led to this revolutionary judgment being made at this juncture.

The Facts of Woolmington
The offence concerned was murder and Woolmington was tried initially at the Somerset Winter Assizes in Taunton on 23 January 1935. However, as the jury was unable to reach a verdict, despite having deliberated for only an hour, 26 it was discharged by Finlay J and the case transferred for trial at Bristol Winter Assizes. This took place between 13 and 14 February 1935 and Woolmington was convicted. He appealed, first to the Court of Criminal Appeal, and then to the House of Lords.
Reginald Woolmington, aged twenty-one, and his wife, Violet, aged seventeen, had lived together for a short period in Oborne, near Sherborne in Dorset. 27 The couple married on 25 August 1934 and their child, Reginald Francis, was born on 14 October 1934. They separated in the November and Violet moved back to live with her mother, Lilian, 28 just over the county border in Milborne Port, Somerset. Woolmington visited Violet on 10 December 1934, at about 9.15am, hoping to persuade her to return to the matrimonial home. He accepted in evidence that during that visit he shot Violet dead with a sawn-off shotgun, but insisted that it was an accident and he had not intended to kill or injure her. His evidence was that he showed the gun to his wife in order to demonstrate his resolve to commit suicide if she would not return home. The gun discharged by mistake and 23 W. Twining, 'Cannibalism and Legal Literature', 6(3) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (1986), 423. 24 Threedy, 'Unearthing Subversion', 135. 25 Threedy, 'Excavating Cases', 1200. 26 Western Gazette, 25 Jan. 1935. 27 The law report states their residence was in the parish of Castleton, near Sherborne, but is more accurately situated as near to the village of Oborne, where Woolmington's parents lived. 28 According to Violet's birth certificate, her full name was Lily Ida Smith, but she was referred to as 'Lilian' in the trial transcript.
shot Violet, fatally, throug`h the heart. Violet's aunt, Daisy Brine, who lived next door, had overheard voices, a door slamming and the gun going off as she hung out her washing on the clothes-line, which stretched across the unpartitioned garden to the rear of both properties. 29 When she investigated, she saw Woolmington cycling off. These are the simple facts of the case, but the law report provides additional details, and we can put some further flesh on those bones as well. Woolmington gave evidence of what led up to the shooting. 30 He testified that while doing the milking at Ivy House Farm, where he worked, and after a restless night thinking about Violet, he decided on a plan to threaten suicide if she would not return to him. He finished work at about 8.20am and after breakfast at his parents' house returned to the farm. There, he took a gun from the barn and sawed the barrels off, so that it could be concealed under his coat. The barrels and saw were disposed of in a nearby brook. 31 He then loaded the gun with two cartridges and, with the gun in a large pocket in the coat, cycled to his parents' house where he changed into his smart overcoat and trilby hat. 32 As the coat had no similar pocket, he suspended the gun over his shoulder by means of a piece of electrical wire flex, so that the gun was hanging down under his right arm. He then cycled to his mother-in-law's house.
Having first knocked on the door, Woolmington went into the back kitchen of 24, Newtown and asked his wife -'Are you coming back or not, Vi?' When she did not reply, he followed Violet into the front room and asked again. This time she replied that she had 'made up her mind to go into service'. The law report states that it was at this point Woolmington threatened that he would shoot himself if she would not return home: ' … and, to explain how he meant to do this, and to show her the gun with which he meant to do it, he unbuttoned his overcoat, and brought the gun across his waist. The gun went off; he did not know it was pointing at his wife. She fell to the ground'. 33 Woolmington asserted in evidence 'I had the shock of my life when it went off', as he said he only intended to 'demonstrate that I would shoot myself if she did not return'. 34 The houses in Newtown are small with the front room at No. 24 measuring ten feet three inches wide by ten feet nine inches long. 35 Violet appears to have been shot at close range (one yard) and the medical evidence was that she died instantaneously. 36 Afterwards, 29 Parliamentary Archives (Hereafter PA) HL/PO/JU/43/918/Woolmington, 94-97. 30 Ibid., 135-138. 31 Ibid., 117-118. 32 Ibid., 91. 33 Woolmington AC, 463. 34 PA, HL/PO/JU/43/918, 142-143. 35 Ibid., 32. 36 Ibid., 79-80.
Woolmington cycled to his parents' house in Oborne and explained what had happened, before putting the gun in their shed. However, notably, he omitted to mention to them or to his employer, Albert Victor Cheeseman (hereafter 'Cheeseman'), that the shooting had been an accident. He simply said to the latter, 'I shall not be coming to work any more, I have shot my wife'. 37 He had also left the scene without alerting her family next door or seeking medical assistance and testified that these omissions were due to him being 'confused' 38 -'It was a shock to me, and I did not know what to do'. 39 When Violet's aunts, Daisy Brine, and Olive Budd (from 22, Newtown), rushed from next door, they found Violet in a pool of blood on a mat in front of the hearth, 40 with the baby in its pram within a yard of her. 41 It seems that the reason why, in particular, Woolmington was restless over the night of 9 December was because Violet's brother had told him that Violet had been seen with another man at the cinema in Sherborne. This was not in evidence at trial, but it was referred to in oblique terms and Woolmington gave evidence that as a result of 'something' her brother told him he decided to threaten to commit suicide in order to secure Violet's return home. 42 However, a note written in red ink and recovered from Woolmington's coat by his mother, strongly suggests that his plan was to shoot Violet if she would not return to him and to then commit suicide, but that he changed his mind about the latter: Good bye all. It is agonies to carry on any longer. I have kept true, hoping she would return. This is the only way out. They ruined me and I'll have my revenge. May God forgive me for doing this but it is the best thing. Ask Jess to call for the money paid on motor bike (Wed). Her mother is no good on this earth, but have no more cartridges, only two, one for her and one for me. I am of sound mind now. Forgive me for all trouble caused. Good bye all. I love Violet with all my heart. Reg. 43 Woolmington maintained in evidence that the note was written after he returned home and that his father dissuaded him from committing suicide. 44 He insisted that committing suicide would, somehow, be revenge on his mother-in-law and her family, 45 but had no explanation as to why he loaded both barrels of the gun before visiting Violet, other than 37  that she might think he was 'bluffing' if he did not load the gun. 46 Whether a gun was necessary to illustrate his intention might be doubted but, in addition, as Swift J stated in his summing-up at Bristol Assizes, if the note was written after the incident, 'it is extremely difficult to understand'. 47 The law report refers, of course, to Woolmington's defence that the gun went off accidentally but, apart from a reference to rook-shooting, makes no reference to the appellant's knowledge of guns. 48 However, there was some evidence of this at trial. At the Taunton Assizes, Woolmington testified that before the day in question he had fired only one cartridge from that gun and had never used any other gun. 49 At the Bristol trial he accepted that he had used the gun previously for scaring birds. 50 Woolmington was also a member of the Somerset Light Infantry Territorials for four years 51 and there was evidence that he had fired at Christmas shoots. 52 It is clear that he was well-acquainted with guns and it was a source of some surprise locally that he should deny this, as it was considered that growing up in that area Woolmington would be very familiar with guns. 53 The critical part of the Bristol trial that led to Woolmington's appeal was Swift J's direction to the jury on the burden of proof, which the House of Lords held was wrong. At the Taunton trial, Finlay J placed the onus of proof squarely on the prosecution to prove the accused's guilt. 54 However, Swift J's direction was to the effect that if the prosecution proved to the criminal standard that the accused had killed the victim, it was presumed to be murder, and that the onus was on the accused to prove otherwise -If you come to the conclusion that she died in consequence of injuries from the gun which he was carrying, you are put by the law of this country into this position: The killing of a human being is homicide, however he may be killed, and all homicide is presumed to be malicious and murder, unless the contrary appears from circumstances of alleviation, excuse, or justification. 'In every charge of murder, the fact of killing being first proved, all the circumstances of accident, necessity, or infirmity are to be satisfactorily proved by the prisoner, unless they arise out of the evidence produced against him; for the law presumeth the fact to have been founded in malice, unless the contrary appeareth.' That has been the law of this country for all time since we had law. Once it is shown to a jury that somebody has died through the act of another, that is presumed to be murder, unless the person who has been guilty of the act which causes death can satisfy a jury that what happened was something less, something which might be alleviated, something which might be reduced to a 46 Ibid., 150. 47  charge of manslaughter, or was something which was accidental, or was something which could be justified. 55 The direction reflected the contents of the relevant passage in the main practitioner text, Archbold'sPleading, Evidence and Practice in Criminal Cases, and was understood to be a correct statement of the law. Indeed, Swift J recited this word-for-word to the jury, 56 as he had done on many previous occasions. 57 Therefore, he was, understandably, confident of the correctness of his direction. When lunching with Woolmington's counsel a month before the appeal, he dismissed the latter's prospects for success with good humour, but also some incredulity -'So I don't know how to a sum up a murder trial!' 58 If any trial judge at that time could have been trusted to direct the jury correctly, it was Swift J. He sat regularly in the Court of Criminal Appeal and was 'renowned for his knowledge of the law and great experience in criminal trials'. 59 The law that Swift J relied on in Archbold was derived from the longstanding authority of Sir Michael Foster's Crown Law, 60 when he declared to the jury that it had been 'the law of this country for all time since we had law'. 61 However, the House of Lords based its criticism of Swift J's direction on the fact that, although Foster was a distinguished judge, he was only writing as 'a textbook writer' and not a judge. Therefore, their Lordships concluded that his statement on burdens of proof could be departed from and was not determinative. 62 Although that may seem persuasive, we should be aware that the decision not to follow the law set out in Foster's Crown Law, which had been authoritative on the issue since its publication in 1762, was largely unexpected.
There was some ambivalence about the rule among lawyers and judges. Woolmington's counsel stated in his autobiography that he had 'long considered it suspect' 63 and will have been aware that the practice of some judges, such as Finlay J, had been to apply the law with less strictness. 64 Lord Devlin later observed that uncertainty about the law could also be detected in Avory J's comment in the Court of Criminal Appeal that ' … it may be that it would have been better' had Swift J directed the jury to acquit if they 'entertained reasonable doubt'. 65  Smith observed, there was 'ample authority' 66 for it and Devlin also concluded 'by far the greater strength of previous authority supported' the terms of Swift J's direction. 67 Moreover, even Sankey later acknowledged that, in relation to the law as it stood at that time, Swift's direction could not be faulted and even praised his summing-up. 68 Lord Hewart CJ, Sankey's fellow judge in Woolmington, was also restrained in his criticism of Swift J's account of the law, later acknowledging that the House of Lords was determined to make a change to the law, as their Lordships were of the opinion, regardless of its authority, that the law in Foster's Crown Law was 'extinct' and had no place in the modern criminal law. 69 Accordingly, it is no understatement, as Glanville Williams opined, to assert that the House of Lords in Woolmington 'effected a revolution in the criminal law'. 70 Not surprisingly, Woolmington's family felt that their 'prayers had been answered' when his appeal to the House of Lords succeeded and he was released. 71 Violet's mother was also remarkably magnanimous -'I hope things turn out all right for him. It was here Violet died. I shall never be able to forget my loss'. 72 Woolmington remained in his home area until at least October 1935, when he is reported as contesting a boxing match at a circus tent at the Sherborne Pack Monday Fair. 73 However, it seems that local feeling against him continued to run high and his mother indicated to the Daily Mirror that as it was not easy for him to 'live down the past', he was leaving the local area. He took a job in Lincoln, under an assumed name, as a cable electrician, 74 but later moved to Barnstaple in Devon, where he died on 30 January 1962, aged forty-seven, of heart failure. 75 The facts of the case having been introduced, it is now necessary to examine the socio-economic context in which this revolutionary judgment was made. as a 'farm labourer' who 'bore a good character' and lived with his young wife, Violet, on a farm run by a Mr Cheeseman. 77 The summary of Woolmington's evidence of how he came to confront Violet also feeds into the rusticity of the picture, referring as it does to how: … .he went on the morning of the 10th in the usual way to the milking at his employer's farm, and while milking conceived this idea that he would take the old gun which was in the barn and he would take it up that morning to his wife's mother's house where she was living, and that he would show her that gun and tell her that he was going to commit suicide if she did not come back … He finished his milking, went back to his father's house, had breakfast and then left, taking with him a hack saw. He returned to the farm, went into the barn, got the gun, which had been used for rook shooting, sawed off the barrels of it, then took the only two cartridges which were there and put them into the gun. He took the two pieces of the barrel which he had sawn off and the hack saw, crossed a field about 60 yards wide and dropped them into the brook. Having done that, he returned on his bicycle, with the gun in his overcoat pocket [used for carrying rabbits] to his father's house and changed his clothes. 78 It is suggested that the unavoidable impression given by the law report is of a killing committed against the backdrop of a traditional Dorset farming community, static and unchanging like Hardy's Egdon Heath. 79 Some of the newspaper reports that followed Woolmington's appeal give a similar impression. One described how he attended a service at 'an old-fashioned village church', nodded and smiled to the rector and the congregation then followed him back to his parents' cottage. 80 Another presented Woolmington's own account of the case, with the headline 'I have learned to pray', and mentioned his fear that had his appeal failed he would ' … never see another summer, never swim in the sea again, go cider-making or hay-making'. 81 However, the reality of the Woolmingtons' lives was somewhat different.
Violet was born in the Somerset village of Charlton Horethorne, 82 but her family later moved to the 'manufacturing town' of Milborne Port 83 where, along with her widowed mother, she worked in the long-established leather glove industry. Although Woolmington's family were more closely linked to an agricultural way of life, they had not always farmed Hillside Farm in Oborne 84 and even Woolmington's employer, Mr Cheeseman, 77 Woolmington AC, 462. 78  had not always been a dairy farmer. 85 Although Woolmington was described as a farm labourer and had previously been engaged in seasonal work at harvest time, 86 he had also worked as a butcher, 87 in cider factories in Yeovil, 88 and been in the Armed Forces. 89 Before he married he had also worked in Jersey on a Labour Exchange scheme for the unemployed. 90 Therefore, the couple were both less rooted in the Dorset/Somerset countryside than might be imagined from the law report and, instead of a 'static, immemorial Arcadia', Violet and Woolmington inhabited a world in the 1930s that was in the process of change. 91 However, some things had not changed. When Woolmington 'stepped briskly' into the dock at Bristol in his 'smart brown suit and spotted red silk scarf', 92 he must have looked like the epitome of working-class respectability. It has been observed that a 'total devotion and dedication towards the concept of respectability' characterized working-class attitudes in this period. 93 Although the origins of this focus on 'respectability' are uncertain, it has been argued that much of the moral philosophy of the working class can be traced back to the Bible and that the basic tenets of Christianity played an important part in workingclass life in the early part of the twentieth century. 94 People acted according to this 'complex set of ethical and moral rules handed down to them from generation to generation' 95 and in Dorset, due to its 'slow' development, 96 attitudes remained inflexible.
Especially important, in relation to Woolmington, are working-class attitudes to premarital sex and pregnancies. These were 'universally frowned upon' 97 and generally regarded as 'sinful' 98 or 'with genuine horror', 99 even if there could be some variation in attitudes.
In some localities women were only mildly rebuked by their families and their life continued as normal, with adjustments being made to 85 He was brought up in the Queen's Head Inn, Sherborne and his father also worked as an engine driver at a brewery, accommodate the hurried wedding or the illegitimate child. 100 However, in Dorset it was regarded as 'a gross breach of a man's honour' for a man to refuse to marry a woman with whom he has been 'keeping company' (i.e. having sexual intercourse) and caused to 'become enceinte'. 101 A local newspaper referred to Woolmington and Violet as having been 'keeping company' for some two years 102 from when Violet was aged fifteen and so it will have been obvious to local people why they married.
There is no proof that the couple were compelled to marry, but the evidence points to that conclusion. Violet became aware that she was pregnant while Woolmington was in Jersey and wedding preparations began as soon as he returned in July 1935. They were married within a month 103 and the child was born seven weeks later. Woolmington claimed that Violet's mother, Lilian, 'continually threw' at him that he had 'got her daughter into trouble' 104 and said to him two days before the marriage that 'he had done the mischief and he had to put up with it'. 105 At the Taunton trial Lilian described the birth as 'a disgrace' and 'dishonourable' 106 and her anger 107 seems to have been exacerbated by Woolmington denying he was the father of the child, 108 although he insisted at trial that he had never denied paternity. 109 If respectability required that the couple 'had to get married' due to the stigma of illegitimacy, it seems that they were content enough, at least until the baby was born. 110 However, the evidence that she had been seen at the cinema in Sherborne with another man 111 may indicate that Violet was, perhaps, not entirely satisfied with being required to marry Woolmington. Moreover, her mother's evidence at both trials strongly suggested that Violet was the victim of domestic abuse and it is contended that in Woolmington, as in other legal archaeology projects, 'decoding the operation of gender' 112 plays an important role in helping us to understand the case more fully.

Domestic abuse and other gender issues
Woolmington's counsel told the Court of Criminal Appeal that the relationship between Woolmington and Violet had involved a few marital 'tiffs' 113 and Woolmington testified that, although they had exchanged 'one or two words', there had been no serious quarrels. 114 This perspective on the marriage was accepted by the House of Lords and is reflected in the law reports, which state, quite mildly, that 'there appears to have been some quarrelling' between the couple, 115 but does not mention anything more serious, except that it led to Violet leaving. 116 We are left to assume that it was only petty 'squabbles' between the young couple that led to their separation. However, there was evidence at both trials, not mentioned in the law reports, which indicated that there was something more than just marital friction and that this was an abusive relationship.
The main witness to the alleged abuse was Violet's mother, Lilian who, although she had not witnessed it at first hand, was permitted to repeat what she said her daughter told her about the relationship. However, of course, it is very common for domestic abuse to be unwitnessed by third parties. 117 Lilian testified at some length about her daughter's experience. Despite defence counsel characterizing Lilian as the archetypal interfering mother-in-law, Swift J directed the Bristol jury that although she was not neutral, Lilian's evidence was reliable because it was corroborated 'extraordinarily' by an independent third party, the Sherborne Police Court missionary, Albert Berryman. As Swift J observed, he 'had no reason in the world … for saying one word against Woolmington which is not true'. 118 Violet's mother testified at both the Taunton and Bristol trials that Woolmington was violent, controlling and possessive towards Violet. He was a foot or more taller than Violet 119 and the Press described him as being of 'athletic build' 120 and a well-known local amateur boxer. 121 At the Bristol trial, Lilian did not repeat her earlier evidence that he 'was always using his fists on [Violet]' 122 and that he 'often smacked [Violet] across the face for small things'. 123  threatened to strangle Violet and to 'give her a hiding' 124 and there is no indication that she resiled from her earlier evidence. Indeed, she provided new 125 and compelling evidence that Violet had protested to her that she had not been allowed to leave the house in the afternoon. 126 Lilian also testified that Woolmington refused to allow Violet to attend the Armistice Service in Sherborne on 11 November and when, in turn, Violet refused to accompany him to his parents that he hit her and confined her to the house while he went to the pub. 127 She insisted that the reason that her daughter had left Woolmington was because she 'could not stand' his behaviour any longer 128 and, in summing up, Swift J suggested that domestic violence was probably the reason for Violet leaving: ' … physical violence … may give a reason which would account for her leaving him, as she did leave him, after they had been married only from a date in August, the 25th August'. 129 However, there is no hint of this in the law reports.
Despite Woolmington's denials, 130 Lilian's evidence of her daughter's maltreatment by him was corroborated by both the court missionary, Berryman, 131 and Cheeseman. Although the latter testified that Woolmington provided no explanation and 'did not seem to know' why Violet had left him, 132 it may be inferred that Cheeseman was well aware of the reason. Lilian's evidence was that when Cheeseman accompanied Woolmington in order to persuade Violet to return, he threatened: 'If this young man does not behave himself I will see to him', 133 clearly implying that violence was involved. In cross-examination, Cheeseman denied saying this and insisted that he had only offered to 'try and help them'. 134 However, it is significant that it was Cheeseman who suggested inviting a Police Court missionary to mediate. 135 Police Court missionaries were the forerunners of probation officers and were not called upon as general marriage counsellors but, rather, when one spouse felt compelled to seek a court summons against the other, for assault, abuse or neglect. 136 That is, they addressed the causes of domestic abuse and not marital tiffs. However, it is also worth noting that the assumption that women should remain in a marriage in order to 'restore the home to its normal balance' was integral to their 124 PA, HL/PO/JU/43/918, 40-41. 125 Defence counsel said: 'It is absolutely new to me', ibid., 41-42. 126 Ibid., 50-51. 127 It was put to her in cross-examination that Woolmington was teetotal, which she denied, ibid., 53. 128 PA, HL/PO/JU/43/918, 43. 129 Ibid., 178. 130 Ibid., 125-128 and those of his mother, 103-104. 131 Ibid., 64-65. 132 Ibid., 77. 133  work 137 and continued to be so after reforms to divorce law introduced by the Matrimonial Causes Act 1937. 138 In summary, we have an official law report that omits to indicate the nature of the alleged marital 'quarrelling', despite there being ample evidence that it was serious abusive behaviour; a female witness who is stereotyped as an interfering mother-in-law; a male witness who appears to be aware of domestic violence but 'plays it down' in his evidence and a Christian missionary who presumed Violet should return to her husband despite this abuse. Threedy contends that a court's 'unexamined assumptions' may often influence litigation in an insidious way 139 and it is evident that deeply embedded in the Woolmington judgment were assumptions relating to the nature and extent of a wife's marital obligations 140 and the courts' tolerance of the 'rough usage' of wives, which was evident in the nineteenth but also into the twentieth century. 141 More than forty years before Woolmington, in a decision that was described as 'the grandest victory the women's cause has ever yet gained', 142 the Court of Appeal in Jackson 143 held that there was no legal right for a husband to confine his wife. However, the decision was met with rioting and resistance in the Press, Parliament and among lawyers, so that it became 'less obvious that women had gained a great victory'. 144 Indeed, Doggett contends that the court had no intention of changing the nature of the marital relationship and it appears from the facts of Woolmington that assumptions about a husband's 'right' of confinement persisted well into the twentieth century. 145 These seemed to underpin the hostile crossexamination of Violet's mother by Woolmington's counsel, who maintained that Woolmington had been entitled to control Violet's movements. 146  woman with adult responsibilities. Even on her own version of events at the subsequent trial she never once told her daughter that it was her duty to stay with her husband. 147 Cheeseman's comments to Violet when, along with Woolmington, he encouraged her to return to the matrimonial home, also seem infused with a sense of Violet's duty and Woolmington's entitlement -'Now Mrs Woolmington, do not you think you had better come back?' 148 Moreover, the court missionary actively tried to persuade her to return and the trial judge described it as the 'very proper thing to try and persuade her to do'. 149 However, what is, perhaps, more striking is that this belief in a husband's rights can also be found reflected in legal textbooks of the time. For example, Cairns, in the 1937 edition of Eversley's Law of the Domestic Relations, wrote confidently in a section entitled 'Control and Custody of Wife' that in relation to 'power and dominion over his wife' it remained permissible for a husband to 'detain his wife within the walls of the matrimonial domicil … when apprehensive of her doing some injury to his property or his honour'. 150 It follows that this belief may have been shared by the House of Lords, but also by the jury at Bristol. In this regard, it is also important to bear in mind the composition of the jury at the time.
As Woolmington was tried in 1935, sixteen years after the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 permitted women to sit on juries, it might be assumed that the juries were mixed. However, both the Taunton 151 and Bristol 152 juries were composed wholly of men. This might be explained by the property qualification 153 for membership of a jury, as there were far fewer female householders than male. This meant that juries continued to be 'predominantly male', 154 particularly on the Western circuit that included Taunton and Bristol. 155 However, in light of the facts of the case, it is more likely that the male jury in Woolmington was achieved by a decision to exclude women that followed a peremptory challenge by the defence because of the domestic violence nature of the case. Women were commonly excluded from serving on juries at that time because of the perception that they would generally convict in such cases due to an inability to evaluate exculpatory evidence with the same level of objectivity and rationality as men. 156 It is hard not to suppose that if women jurors, with their different life experiences, perceptions and perspectives, had been involved in the trials, they may have been less sympathetic to Woolmington and less willing than their male counterparts to accept the fact of a husband's dominion over his wife. 157 Indeed, arguably, the very fact of their deliberate exclusion from sitting on the Woolmington juries tends to support this view. They may have been able to reach a verdict at Taunton and, if a Bristol jury had been required, it may have felt less inclined to make their 'very strong recommendation to mercy on account of extreme youth'. 158 Another important part of the context to Woolmington is the economic background. While Cheeseman appears to have recognized and even acted on the domestic abuse of Violet as the central problem in the marriage, he also testified that he thought the couple's marital problems were due to financial difficulties. 159 This was contradicted by Violet's mother, 160 but there can be little doubt that the couple's marital problems were exacerbated by the financial difficulties in the 1930s. Therefore, in the next section, some of the economic background to the case will be briefly examined.

The economic background
If there was, as we have seen, a greater degree of mobility in Woolmington's and Violet's families than might have been expected from the contents of the law reports, this is, in part, explained by the difficult economic circumstances in rural communities at that time. The 1930s are regarded as the nadir of an agricultural crisis in Britain that stretched from 1875 to 1939 and caused severe hardship to large parts of rural communities. 161   the number who find employment' in agricultural areas. 163 The extent of arable farming is often regarded as a reliable barometer of agricultural prosperity 164 and, in the 1930s, many farms in the traditionally arable county of Dorset, were forced to go through the painful process of readjusting to market conditions by switching to mixed dairy systems. 165 Woolmington's insecure and varied economic circumstances were, therefore, typical. Once married, he worked as a cowman on Cheeseman's farm 166 but, at this time, agricultural wage levels were low, even falling below the rates for urban, unskilled labour. Accordingly, farmworkers like Woolmington were severely disadvantaged compared to the urban workforce. For example, the average wage for ordinary male agricultural workers was thirty-three shillings compared to fifty-four shillings for Local Authority labourers, fifty-three shillings for building labourers and seventy-one shillings for bricklayers. 167 Moreover, agriculture was not covered by unemployment insurance. 168 Woolmington was not well off financially. He was paying weekly amounts to cover the cost of his bicycle and his clothes. 169 The living conditions in the couple's cottage on Ivy House Farm are also likely to have been of a relatively low standard and as, increasingly in this period, women tended to show more sensitivity to the practical inconveniences of cottage life, 170 this may have been less inviting than the comforts of Violet's mother's home in Milborne Port. Indeed, there is evidence that Violet's mother complained about the lack of linoleum floor-covering in some of the cottage rooms, 171 although an absence of such covering would not have been exceptional in the area at the time. 172 Importantly, we know that as Violet could undertake glove-making at home, the accepted fact of economic dependence of housewives in that era did not apply to her. 173 Glove-making by women working on piece rates at home had been an important Somerset industry since the nineteenth century. The work offered girls and women like Violet a degree of financial independence from their parents at an early age and meant that 'gloving girls' were known for having a high degree of autonomy and as unwilling to submit to control. 174 If reliance is just placed on the official law reports, we assume that Violet is simply a farm labourer's unskilled, demure and dependent young wife, rather than an independent-minded and self-reliant 'gloving girl' who did not need to tolerate her husband's 'rough usage'. 175 We know that Violet was not financially reliant on Woolmington. Her mother gave evidence that Violet had earned about twenty-eight shillings in a good week, 176 which compared well with Woolmington's reported thirty-one shillings 177 and was close to the minimum agricultural wage that Woolmington could have expected if the rates set by the local County Agricultural Wage Committee were observed. 178 Accordingly, Violet will have been aware that she could be financially independent from her husband if she returned home to her mother, who also home-worked. It is, therefore, surprising that when Woolmington confronted Violet at her mother's house on 10 December, she told him that she was going into service. 179 Service was a common destination for single mothers in agricultural areas, but their counterparts in more industrial areas, such as Milborne Port, tended to undertake work in the home. 180 'Service' was also widely regarded as a 'an occupation of last resort' 181 because of its low pay, low status and long hours. 182 It follows that if Violet, who could earn in 'gloving' work as much money as Woolmington, said she was going into service, this was probably not because she considered that to be an employment opportunity or a 'chance for excitement' away from rural life. 183 The more likely explanation is that she was desperate to escape from her controlling and coercive husband, Woolmington, and becoming a servant offered her a way out.
Having considered the socio-economic background to the judgment in Woolmington, we must now turn to consider the important political context in which the House of Lords reached its judgment.

Capital punishment
Following Woolmington's conviction at Bristol Assizes, Swift J duly pronounced the death sentence. Woolmington's appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal was tersely dismissed by Avory J 'in his dry, crackling voice' on the grounds that 'There could be no question that the judge properly laid down the law applicable to the case'. 184 Nevertheless, Woolmington and his family did not give up hope that he could avoid execution and a vigorous, but now largely forgotten, campaign turned him into an unlikely cause célèbre. This is evident from the reaction to his successful appeal in the House of Lords. He appeared on the front-page of national newspapers 185 and, presented as the victim of a miscarriage of justice, was offered a variety of employment opportunities, 186 including the chance of becoming a film actor. 187 The campaign in support of Woolmington started when his mother, Maria, organized a petition to the Home Secretary asking for his reprieve. 188 His father toured local villages on a motorbike, while his uncle and his boxing club also collected signatures. 189 The campaign attracted support from the local Press, 190 but also came to wider attention. A further petition was organized by Edgar Reginald Pursey, an international clay pigeon shooter and firearms expert, who was convinced by Woolmington's claim that his gun had discharged accidentally. 191 However, more importantly, Woolmington gained the support of the controversial anti-capital punishment campaigner, Violet van der Elst, who launched her campaign against the death penalty around the same time as his case came before the courts. 192 Van der Elst was a wealthy businesswoman, whose imaginative repertoire 193 of 'post-suffragette' direct action tactics, mobilizing 'spectacle to protest', 194 contrasted with the more staid campaigns run by the Howard League and the National Council for the Abolition of the Death Penalty. She toured the West End of London broadcasting through a loudspeaker from her car 'Abolish capital punishment! These men must not hang' 195 on behalf of Woolmington and another prisoner, Leonard Brigstock who, despite his defence of insanity, had been convicted of the murder of an officer on HMS Marshal Soult. She further proclaimed her intention to send a fleet of loudspeaker cars around the country on their behalf and appealed to the public to sign a petition of the Home Secretary. Over 100,000 signatures were obtained on behalf of Woolmington 196 and 80,000 for Brigstock, along with the support of the leader of the Labour Party, George Lansbury and his deputy, Clement Attlee. 197 It seems likely that Woolmington attracted greater sympathy than Brigstock due to the brutal nature of Brigstock's offencehe cut the throat of his victim with such force that he nearly decapitated himand because further evidence of his insanity was roundly rejected on appeal. 198 However, the gendered nature of Woolmington's offence may have also played a part. As we have noted, there appears to have been an assumption that Woolmington was justified in trying to compel his 'wayward' wife to return to him, which may have led to more public sympathy for him than Brigstock and a sense that he should not be hanged in those circumstances.
Despite her high-profile campaign, van der Elst was unsuccessful in preventing Brigstock's execution on 2 April 1935, two days before Woolmington's appeal to the House of Lords. However, undaunted, she arrived outside Wandsworth Prison on the day of execution in a cream-coloured, chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. In scenes 'reminiscent of some great theatrical show', fifty white-coated men with sandwich-boards and placards, and vans with loudspeakers playing hymns, paraded up and down the road outside the prison. 199 As Woolmington languished in Horfield Prison awaiting his fate, van der Elst loudly proclaimed her support to the crowd while threatening 'The Government dare not arrest me'. 200 Van der Elst has been described as 'tethering her activism to a vision of modernity', 201 as she viewed executions as 'harmful' to the 'highest forms of civilisation'. 202 This view of capital punishment as archaic also chimes with the House of Lords' approach to the burden of proof in Woolmington which, even if the weight of authority supported Swift J's direction to the jury, seems to have been inspired by a sense that the law was in need of modernization. Lord Cooke speculated in his Hamlyn Lecture that as Lord Atkin was in the 'first judicial rank', whereas Sankey was 'not among the great English judges', the former must have played the decisive role in the judgment. 203 That Atkin may have steered the judgment is also given some credence by Woolmington's counsel's recollection that Atkin answered, on his behalf, questions that were put to him by Lord Hewart CJ. 204 However, he also observes it was clear that Sankey had favoured the defence 205 and there is strong evidence to suggest that it was Sankey's determination to modernize the law that inspired the 'golden thread' judgment.

The Lord Chancellor, Viscount Sankey
Sankey was appointed Lord Chancellor in the second Labour Government, 1929-1931 and remained in post in Ramsay MacDonald's National Government that succeeded it. Sankey's personal papers reveal very little about how he approached his legal work. His diaries provide some detail about political affairs, such as his chairing of the Indian Round Table Conferences in 1931, but details about his legal work are much sparser. For example, when his Statute of Westminster Act 1931 passed through Parliament, a 'milestone' in constitutional law that formalized the independence of British Dominions, 206 it earned only a brief mention in his diary. 207 The details of judgments are even briefer. For Woolmington, Sankey wrote: embodiment of everything that is excellent, and who wish to reform it'. 211 For our purposes, it is poignant that Sankey was driven, in particular, by an aim to 'abolish the effect of decisions obviously wrong and which have outlived their usefulness'. 212 The rule in Foster's Crown Law, was a case in point. Moreover, he had recently established the Law Revision Committee, regarded as a forerunner to the Law Commission, 213 abolished grand juries 214 and made several important reforming judgments. 215 However, Sankey was not just an enthusiastic law reformer, he was also a socialist and Stevens contends that, despite his legal background, 'his true interests lay in politics', 216 as is also apparent from his personal papers. Accordingly, in order to understand how Sankey came to deliver his revolutionary judgment in Woolmington, it is essential to consider his politics.
Sankey had initially been a Conservative, 217 but seems to have been radicalized by his work at the Bar specializing in Workmen's Compensation Act 1897 cases for miners 218 and his experience as chairman of the 1919 Coal Industry Royal Commission. 219 The final report, which recommended nationalization of the coal industry, came as a severe shock to the Government and earned Sankey a degree of political notoriety. 220 After joining the Labour Party, he impressed the Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, for being 'devotedly with us in his heart' 221 and was appointed Lord Chancellor in the second Labour Government, having been passed over for Lord Haldane in the first. 222 However, it was Haldane who introduced Sankey to 'the most famous socialist intellectual of his era', 223 Harold Laski, who urged MacDonald to appoint Sankey in 1929. 224 Laski became a close friend 225 and was appointed as Sankey's unofficial adviser, 226 but Sankey was also acquainted with other left-wing intellectuals, such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, 227 and R H Tawney, 228 and became an active member of the Fabian Society. 229 However, it was the radical ideas of Laski that had the strongest influence on him. Thus, Sankey could write to Laski that he saw many of his own views reflected in the latter's magnum opus, A Grammar of Politics, in which Laski set out a radical socialist theory. Indeed, Sankey regretted he had not written it himself, 230 and it is clear that, under Laski's influence, he became firmly committed to the Labour cause and socialism, with his maiden speech in the House of Lords being clearly socialist in its content. 231 Notwithstanding this, by the time that Woolmington was heard, Sankey had joined MacDonald's National Government and, as a result, been expelled from the Labour Party.
The National Government was formed after MacDonald was unable to command the confidence of his cabinet and, having offered his resignation to the King, was asked to continue as Prime Minister. In August 1931, the King invited MacDonald to form the National Government with the support of the Conservative and Liberal parties, but the Labour Party opposed this coalition. Out of the cabinet, only Sankey, Philip Snowden and J H Thomas agreed to join. This might be regarded as supporting a view taken by some that Sankey was a 'relatively non-partisan' 232 and even right-wing 233 member of the MacDonald Government. However, that is to misunderstand Sankey and his decision to join the National Government.
Sankey joined the National Government, in part, out of a sense of loyalty to MacDonald. However, more important factors were his commitment to pursuing a programme of law reform 234 and his determination to continue in his role as chairman of the Round Table Conference to consider dominion status for India and a federal constitution. 235 As a result, Sankey was never seen in the same 'traitorous' light as others who joined MacDonald 236 and was regarded as being on the left of the party. 237 While in the Labour cabinet, he had demonstrated a readiness to 'take sides with Left Wingers', which surprised the industrialists in the Government, 238 and despite joining the National Government, Sankey's political sympathies remained firmly with those of a 'very radical state of mind'. 239 Indeed, he initially justified his loyalty to MacDonald as the consistent socialist approach, endorsing Godfrey Elton's opinion that the Labour Party had diverged from an ideologically socialist path and fallen into 'prudent Labourism' that restricted politics to the narrow, sectional politics of working-class interests: 240 'Had it not been for [MacDonald] I think our Party would have remained a Labour party and would never become a Socialist one. A mere Labour party would never obtain real power in England, nor would it deserve it … . The Socialist party … is a National party in which all classes can find a home'. 241 Sankey's ideological commitment to socialism also explains how he remained on good terms with Laski, who was 'bitterly and totally opposed' to the National Government, 242 and was, by 1932, a prominent member of the Socialist League, a far left-wing grouping within the Labour Party. Indeed, Sankey's politics at this time have been described as not far removed from other radicals in the Socialist League, such as Stafford Cripps and John Strachey, 243 and it is notable that Sankey, continuing his regular correspondence with Laski unabated, 244 could write that 'I do not think … that my principles, even now, are very different from yours.' 245 Moreover, Sankey was clearly unhappy in the National Government from the outset 246 and described himself to Laski as remaining one of the Labour Party's best friends. 247 It is, therefore, no surprise that he remained committed to socialist causes, for example, collaborating with H G Wells on a 'Declaration of the Rights of Man' published by the Labour Party-supporting Daily Herald. He also maintained contact with the Labour leader, George Lansbury, 248 and later re-joined the party. 249 Indeed, Sankey's account of his last exchanges with MacDonald indicates that it had 'always' been his intention to go back to the Labour Party. 250 Sankey's continued commitment to socialism and the Labour cause, in addition to his passion for law reform, is significant because it underlines why he was willing to break with a traditional, centuries-old interpretation of the law in Woolmington. He was known as a 'humanitarian' who 'identified himself with the entire policy and propaganda' of the Labour Party 251 and there is no indication that his opinions altered dramatically after he joined the National Government. Therefore, although his papers reveal little about his opinions on capital punishment, there is little doubt that he shared Laski's 252 and the Labour Party's opposition 253 and it, therefore, seems likely that this was an important influence on his judgment in Woolmington.
In particular, the second Labour Government, in which Sankey was Lord Chancellor, had taken a first step towards ending capital punishment by abolishing the military death penalty for offences of cowardice and desertion 254 and creating the Select Committee on Capital Punishment, which recommended temporary abolition of the sentence for five years. 255 However, the issue was also very current at the time of Woolmington. Six months before the judgment, the Labour Party passed a motion in favour of abolition at its 1934 annual conference. 256 Sankey will also have found it difficult to ignore van der Elst's high-profile campaign for Woolmington, which had gained the support of George Lansbury, who was both the Labour leader and vice-president of the increasingly active National Council for the Abolition of the Death Penalty. Sankey's sympathies in relation to capital punishment and his closeness to the Labour Party are further underlined by the fact that a short time after the judgment in Woolmington, he was invited by the prominent Labour politician, Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, to become president of the National Council for the Abolition of the Death Penalty. 257 In light of this, it is submitted that Sankey must have been influenced by the unpalatable consequences if Swift J's direction was upheld as correct. It would have meant that if a defendant such as Woolmington was unable to prove a killing was not murder, to the defence standard of 'on the balance of probabilities', 258 he could be convicted and sentenced to death, despite a reasonable doubt about his guilt and even though it was equally likely that he was innocent as guilty. Moreover, once he became Lord Chancellor, Sankey was known for only rarely sitting as a judge, 259 so it also seems reasonable to suppose that, alongside his abiding interest in law reform this explains why he was motivated to sit on Woolmington's case. With Mrs van der Elst's recordings of 'Abide with Me' and 'Rock of Ages' 260 echoing in his mind, it is hard to believe that Sankey, a religious but also a supremely political man, 261 would not have been affected by these issues in reaching the judgment on Woolmington's appeal. However, the very fact of the Woolmington appeal is also a matter of political interest.

The appeal procedure
It is commonly remarked how it is surprising that following his successful appeal, Woolmington did not fall to be re-tried. As Lord Justice Hooper has observed, if Woolmington was heard today, it is very likely that a fresh trial would be ordered. 262 This is considered below, but it is the fact of his appeal to the House of Lords that is the more remarkable and, again, the political context is important to understanding how it came about.
The Criminal Appeal Act 1907 created the first proper criminal appeal procedure and permitted appeals from the newly-established Court of Criminal Appeal to the House of Lords. The procedure required the Attorney-General to certify 'a point of law of exceptional public importance' and state that it was 'desirable in the public interest that a further appeal should be brought'. 263 However, this obligation to first obtain the Attorney-General's 'fiat' was deeply unpopular, as it did not reflect the position for civil appeals, which only required leave from the Court of Appeal or House of Lords. 264 Moreover, for the fiat to be granted was highly unusual.
It took three years from enactment of the 1907 Act for any appeal to the House of Lords to be allowed 265 and ten years for a matter of substantive law to be considered. 266 Only twelve such appeals were heard over the next forty years 267 and it was a 'virtual impossibility' for the Attorney-General's fiat to be granted to pursue an appeal. 268 Thus, when Sir Thomas Inskip granted his fiat in Woolmington, it was only the third time that an Attorney-General had authorized an appeal and it was the first for murder. Indeed, at the time of Woolmington's appeal, the procedure was 'so rare as scarcely to deserve mention' in academic writing. 269 It might be supposed that the reason for the small number of appeals was because questions of law of exceptional importance arose only infrequently. However, as was argued at the time, 270 the real explanation is that granting of the fiat was 'politically oriented'. 271 Therefore, it follows that, if the Attorney-General was willing, exceptionally, to support Woolmington's appeal, this must have reflected the National Government's priorities. These are likely to have largely reflected those of MacDonald's Second Labour Government, which had favoured abolition and supported Sankey's scheme for modernising the law.
The granting of the fiat had particular significance for an appellant at the time because the 1907 Act did not give a court the power to order a retrial, even where the defendant appeared to be clearly guilty, 272 and the House of Lords asserted no greater power. 273 Therefore, quite simply, Woolmington could not be retried. It may seem surprising now that retrials were not permissible, but at that time they were a controversial concept and had played an important part in the failure of the Criminal Appeal Bill 1906. It was considered akin to 'torture' to re-try a defendant who had not been at fault for the conduct that led to the appeal and strong opinions were expressed in Parliament when the 1907 Bill, which had been amended to provide for retrials, was debated in Parliament. 274 Indeed, in order to pass the legislation, the Government was forced to reassure Parliament that it would not pursue this provision. 275 If the House of Lords in Woolmington was unable to order a retrial, they were entitled to apply the proviso under section 4 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1907: 'Provided that the court may, notwithstanding that they are of opinion that the point raised in the appeal might be decided in favour of the appellant, dismiss the appeal if they consider that no substantial miscarriage of justice has actually occurred'. However, their Lordships held that this was simply 'impossible' because: 'We cannot say that if the jury had been properly directed, they would have inevitably come to the same conclusion'. 276 That is, it could not be asserted that there was 'no substantial miscarriage of justice' because it could not be maintained that if this jury had been properly directed it would have inevitably returned a further guilty verdict.
The House of Lords was also empowered by section 5(1) of the 1907 Act to substitute a guilty verdict to a lesser charge. However, this does not appear to have been considered by their Lordships, even though the jury was specifically directed by Swift J to consider unlawful act manslaughter because Woolmington had, at the very least, unlawfully threatened Violet with a gun for the purpose of frightening or terrifying her. 277 This may have been because, as with section 4, their Lordships were not persuaded that had this jury been properly directed it would have inevitably reached that conclusion either.
The assessment that, for the purposes of sections 4 and 5, the jury would not inevitably have returned the same or a comparable guilty verdict seems a generous conclusion on the accepted facts of the case. As Goodhart has observed, the inevitability of a jury reaching a certain conclusion is difficult to predict. Therefore, the interpretation of section 4 that read 'inevitably' into the provision had the effect of 'emasculating' it 278 and meant Woolmington was able to avoid the consequences of the proviso. Further, the issue of gender again arises here, as it is likely the jury that their Lordships had in mind was the all-male jury at Bristol Assizes and that this influenced their conclusions. Had a more objective test been applied to sections 4 and 5, which considered what 'a reasonable jury' 279 (including women) would have decided, the House of Lords may have been able to apply the proviso or reach an alternative verdict.
We do know that, in relation to sections 4 and 5, their Lordships seem to have been influenced by the defence argument that Swift J's misdirection had been pivotal in Woolmington being found guilty because, by way of contrast, the 'properly directed' Taunton jury hearing the same evidence had been unable to decide on guilt. 280 However, the House of Lords appear to have fallen into error in that respect as, although the basic issues were the same, there were some important differences between the two trials. These were highlighted by Swift J in his summing-up and must have affected the Bristol jury's verdict. First, there was a new expert firearms witness, Herbert Stevens, called by the Crown, who confirmed that the pull on the left-hand trigger of the shotgun was light, but would be 'reasonably safe' if the gun was handled with 'reasonable care'. 281 Second, as we have seen, Violet's mother, Lilian, testified regarding the important new evidence of Woolmington's violence towards Violet and his practice of locking her in the house. Third, there was the evidence of Berryman, the Police Court missionary, who was an important new witness and corroborated 'extraordinarily' Lilian's evidence that Woolmington had ill-treated Violet and restricted her movements. 282 In the event, three days before he was due to be executed, Woolmington walked free, 283 the first appellant to escape capital punishment since the House of Lords regained its criminal jurisdiction after the 1907 Act.
cast helpful light on the society at the time, but also on the development of the law. 289 It was the product of a society in which it was assumed that a woman's place was in the home and taken for granted that she was subordinate to her husband. It appears that this caused the House of Lords to disregard the significant evidence of domestic abuse or, perhaps, to tolerate it as acceptable 'rough usage' of a wife and to then concede the possibility of an accident. In this respect, it is important to recall, as Rosemary Hunter has observed, that although appellate judges are able to develop the law, they also have the option or choice as to when to do this. 290 Therefore, we may speculate that had a forerunner of Lady Hale been sitting in the House of Lords in Woolmington, she may have been more alert to the evidence of domestic abuse, alongside other related gender issues and, as a result, been less ready to change the long-established law on this particular occasion.
Accordingly, while we may not disagree with Sir John Smith's assessment that the final appeal court has never done 'more noble a deed in the field of criminal law than on that day' 291 in Woolmington, we shouldalso be mindful of the fuller facts of the case, alongside the important gender and wider socio-economic and political factors that led to this revolutionary judgment being made at this particular juncture.