H. Montgomery Hyde , A Tangled Web: Sex Scandals in British Politics and Society from Chapter 4, "Some Victorian Sex Scandals" 1986

Transcribed from pages 76-77 of H. Montgomery Hyde's A Tangled Web: Sex Scandals in British Politics and Society. Published by Constable, 1986.

1.

"It has frequently but erroneously been stated that divorce was originally introduced in England by the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857. In fact this legislation did not alter the law of divorce in any way but simply made it subject to judicial process, thus making it quicker, cheaper and more widely available than the existing cumbrous procedure by Private Act of Parliament. . . While altering the procedure for obtaining a divorce, the 1857 Act introduced no new principles. . . .

However, it did result in the reporting of the evidence in divorce cases, often in salacious detail. This caused Queen Victoria considerable concern, and after the judicial court had been hearing divorce petitions for about two years the Queen wrote to Lord Campbell, by this time Lord Chancellor, asking whether steps could not be taken to prevent the undesirable publicity attending divorce proceedings: These cases, which must necessarily increase when the new law becomes more and more known, fill now almost daily a large portion of the newspapers, and are of so scandalous a character that it makes it almost impossible for a paper to be trusted in the hand of a young lady or boy. None of the worst French novels from which careful parents try to protect their children can be as bad as what is daily brought and laid upon the breakfast-table of every educated family in England, and its effect must be most pernicious to the public morals of the country.

The Lord Chancellor replied that, having attempted in the last session of Parliament to introduce a measure to give effect to the Queen's wish, and having been defeated, he was powerless to prevent the evil. The situation was otherwise in Scotland where divorce cases had always been tried in camera and only the judgment or verdict was published, while in Ireland it did not arise, although crim. con. [i.e., "criminal conversation," civil actions by cuckolded husbands to be compensated for their losses due to the adultery of their wives] cases there continued to be reported in some detail. Hence the evidence in divorce cases in England were fully reported until after the First World War when the reports eventually restricted to conform with the practice in Scotland" (76-77).