ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the affective dimension and visual representation of that figurehead in legal judgment, the judge, in Britain and in a colonial context; study as a micro-history the many judgments passed in communities by local reformers, philanthropic organizations and by local authorities. It explores the judgments passed on 'character' through the index of handwriting; and study judgment in imaginative literature and the visual arts. In the judgment of posterity the Victorians are viewed as judgmental, though the word is a post-Victorian coinage. The Victorian sense of judgment was shaped by two powerful forces: religion and human law. British women involved in campaigns for legislative reform during the twentieth century drew on a rich and well-established set of precedents for critique and coordinated action along lines established in the Victorian period.
