ABSTRACT
This chapter examines particular judicial initiatives to recognise and further the development of the welfare principle occurring during the period framed by two statutes which, in this context, proved to be of exceptional importance: the Tenures Abolition Act 1660 and the Judicature Act 1873. The Court of Chancery appears to have conferred upon itself a very wide interpretational discretion in determining the grounds for intervention. Chancery had from time immemorial supervised the conduct of guardians in relation to their wards. By the early eighteenth century caselaw begins to demonstrate the judicial transfer of principles forged to govern the office of a guardian to govern equally the responsibilities of a parent. In England, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a dual judicial system existed to deal with matters affecting the welfare of a child. By the late 19th century the legal cohesion and autonomy of the patriarchical marital family unit emerged as the central pillar of family law.
