ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the origins of bankruptcy law, its procedure and defects during the industrial revolution and its reform during the fourth and fifth decades of the nineteenth century. The development of bankruptcy law in England was a product of the inflexibility of medieval Common Law and its procedure. The basic assumption of Common Law was that land was the source of all wealth and it obliged creditors individually to pursue remedies against the land and the bodies of their debtors. The mass of bankruptcy statutes was consolidated in 1732 by the Act to Prevent the Committing of Frauds by Bankrupts, which Edward Christian in 1818 called 'the most important existing statute in the system of bankrupt law'. By 1732, therefore, a procedure had been established which, in theory at least, facilitated the equitable division of bankrupt estates among creditors and provided incentives for the bankrupt to act honestly.
