ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses to what extent the nineteenth-century bar was overcrowded, and examines the evidence concerning the membership of the inns of court, the growth of the profession and the size of the practising bar in that period. The severe depression in admissions that began in the year of Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne and reached its trough in the mid-1850s requires further attention. In addition to the general economic conditions, professional considerations contributed to the prolonging of the crisis even after the economy began to recover. The charge of gross overcrowding levelled at the bar was commonplace in late-eighteenth- and nineteenth-century social criticism. The evidence largely substantiates the gloomy assessments of the prospects facing fledgling barristers made by Adam Smith in the 1770s and John Campbell a quarter of a century later. The chapter provides a detailed examination of the barristers themselves by means of a collective biographical survey of their backgrounds and educational careers.
