‘What will most tend towards morality’

Sir Cresswell Cresswell’s appointment as the first judge of the Divorce Court ensured the primacy of the common law in secular divorce litigation. His support for giving the power to intervene in suspicious divorce cases to the Queen’s Proctor and his opposition to suppressing publication of reports of divorce cases proved critical to these developments. Finally, the strict moralism expressed by Cresswell’s judgments set a high standard of conduct for husbands as well as wives.