ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship between careers in law and in politics from the barrister’s perspective. Barristers did not form a random sample of nineteenth-century parliamentarians with regard to their party affiliations. From 1832 until the Irish home rule crisis of 1886 the majority of lawyer/MPs were Liberals in every general election except for Sir Robert Peel’s victory in 1841. In his brilliant study of the Liberal Party, John Vincent has sketched a concise portrait of the place of the barristers in the world of mid-Victorian politics. Two-thirds of the barrister/MPs in 1880 had had active careers in the professions, government service or business before entering Parliament and many of these men were able to combine work in those fields with their political activities. The late Victorian inns of court were one of the doors that led to the world of high society and high politics.
