Dickens, Daumier and the Man of Law

This chapter is concerned with the forms of the legal profession at the start of the Age of Reform (1820–1920) as represented by Charles Dickens (1812–1870) and Honoré Daumier (1808–1879). It is a tale of two cities, London and Paris, and of the legal professions practised in these two cities, and it is a tale of two art forms, text and image, and how those two forms combined in print publications to represent the legal profession in the popular imagination. Dickens’s first novel developed from a commission to supply literary illustrations to accompany another artist’s comic drawings, whereas Daumier’s major professional output was the production of images to be accompanied by text legends written by his editors. The present chapter is also a tale of two sexes, of men and women in art and law. The single most significant legislative reform to occur in the legal profession across the Age of Reform was the admission of women to the ranks of practising lawyers. In France, a law of 1900 opened the way for the first women to enter the profession that year. In England, the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 was followed in 1920 by the first admission of women to the Inns of Court (the traditional site of education in English law), and in 1922 the pioneers were at last called to the bar and the first woman entered legal practice