ABSTRACT
In January 1858 the newly appointed judge, Sir Cresswell Cresswell, opened The Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes’, and, within the first twelve months, 253 petitions seeking divorce and 87 seeking judicial separations were filed. The law reformers were aghast. Lord Cranworth, who as Lord Chancellor carried the Divorce Bill through the House of Lords, had, during the debates, predicted the numbers of divorces would rise from the four per year obtained by Parliamentary proceedings to perhaps 18 or 20 while Lord Brougham anticipated about 100. But 253! Cranworth, after 1858, mentioned that he had been ‘once or twice twitted’ about the volume of cases. Whereas Cranworth, an easygoing, sociable man, could dismiss his bad prediction, Lord Campbell, who earlier bragged in his diary about his great influence in passing the Divorce Act, cringed before what he saw as an epidemic. The Times, staunch supporter of the Divorce Bill in 1857, worried about the deluge and predicted the volume was merely the result of a backlog from the unreformed past. A report to the House of Commons bolstered this hope as the listed dates of adulteries complained of in divorce petitions ranged back to 1823 with nearly 80 per cent occurring before 185 7. No one, violent opponents or eager supporters, had, according to The Times, ‘the least idea of the quantity of matrimonial misery which was silent’. 1
