ABSTRACT
With reference to maternal child homicide trials between 1840 and 1890, the chapter investigates the roles gender-driven, socio-cultural values played in Victorian judicial decisions. When responding to sensitive and poignant cases, nineteenth-century judges often reacted compassionately. Despite the evolution of ideals of male behaviour away from displays of overt male sentimentality, judges throughout the period often acted with sympathetic understanding towards the vulnerable. By highlighting four judges whose careers span the fifty-year period (Thomas Noon Talfourd, James Shaw Willes, Henry Hawkins and Gainsford Bruce), the investigation concludes that, to an extent, social milieu and contemporary conventions influenced all judicial emotive reactions.
