TWO SESQUICENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARIES
Amongst the births, battles, deaths and the sealing of a Great Charter which have all been marked by anniversaries in 2015 the sesquicentennial anniversaries of two disparate but significant publications should not be overlooked.
One is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Alice, the world's most enduring piece of children's nonsense literature. The other consists of the inaugural reports of the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting (ICLR) whose importance will be readily understood by readers of this journal. Both publications first saw the light of day 150 years ago.
The eldest of the two is Alice which was published on 4 July 1865. The reports of the Incorporated Council appeared four months later on the first day of Michaelmas term, 2 November 1865. When Lewis Carroll's illustrator John Tenniel expressed grave dissatisfaction at the print quality of his pictures, chronology turned on its head. Lewis Carroll decided to withdraw and reprint the first edition at a personal cost of £600 and new copies were released on 9 November. In a Wonderland streak of nonsense Alice was thus newly published both before and after the inception of the ICLR and their four month age difference reduced to just one short week.
The contemporaneousness of the births of Alice and the ICLR might seem remarkable and raises the question as to whether it is entirely coincidental. To some extent any pairing closely related in time and place may prove to be the object of common influences if examined on a broad enough level. However Lewis Carroll is mysterious, unique and unsurpassed in subsequent times. In the words of a leading biographer, “Lewis Carroll remains an enigma, a complex human being who has so far defied comprehension”.Footnote 1 Like the Mad Hatter's insoluble riddle of the Raven and the Writing DeskFootnote 2 questions on this shy and unassuming son of a clergyman who authored a world renowned piece of nonsense must sometimes be left unanswered.
Nevertheless the influences behind the law reports and Alice and to some degree their natures are not as distinct from one another as might be imagined for Lewis Carroll, if not a lawyer, was fascinated by legal thought. Likewise the requisite skills of the law report reformers of the day overlapped with some of the many disciplines in which Lewis Carroll excelled.
This article sets out to look at the shared connections and influences between Lewis Carroll and his law report reforming contemporaries. It attempts to highlight how these might be apparent in the creation or the character of Alice and how factors common to both publications might help illuminate ICLR history in this anniversary year.
THE EARLY INFLUENCES AND INTERESTS OF LEWIS CARROLL
From an early age Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, whose pseudonym Lewis Carroll is recognised worldwide, was exposed to the nature of the law. He counted amongst the members of his large closely knit family both paternal and maternal barrister uncles with whom he spent time. His mother's brother Robert Skeffington Lutwidge, a Commissioner in Lunacy, was a favourite uncle who met an unfortunate death following an assault by an inmate of a Salisbury asylum. Lewis Carroll was also close to his paternal uncle Hassard Hume Dodgson, Master of the Court of Common Pleas from 1871–1879.
Of his legal connections in adult life we know in particular of his acquaintance with Sir (Jonathan) Frederick Pollock first baronet (1783–1870) and twice Attorney General under Sir Robert Peel.Footnote 3 Uncle Hassard's daughter Amy Menella Dodgson was to marry Pollock's son Charles Edward in 1865, himself a member of the judiciary. It is through his cousin's marriage that Lewis Carroll became connected to the extensive and influential Pollock family. Indeed, it was Charles Edward's nephew Sir Frederick Pollock who became the editor of the Law Reports in 1895 three years before Lewis Carroll's death.
These connections serve to illustrate the legal circles which Lewis Carroll frequented. His mother Frances Lutwidge's maiden name also raises the possibility of a distant genealogical connection to the seventeenth century law reporter Sir Edward Lutwyche (1634–1709) who was Judge of the Common Pleas from 1686 until his death. His reported cases from 1682 to 1704 were edited and annotated in 1718 by William Nelson.Footnote 4 A paper by Guy Holborn expands on Lutwyche and on his reports.Footnote 5
Lewis Carroll's lifelong legal connections either induced or enhanced his love and insight for the thought processes behind the law and the elements which weave its fabric including words, logic and rules.
Some of these interests were manifest at an early age. Speaking of games they played as children, a childhood friend said, “He took a great deal of trouble working out their rules”.Footnote 6 An example is in his Railway Rule III which was his corruption of an authentic bye-law: “When a passenger has no money and still wants to go by the train, he must stop at whatever station he happens to be at, and make tea for the station master”.Footnote 7
In childhood he wrote magazines for his family such as Mischmasch which contains a childhood attempt at Jabberwocky, a poem published in full in Through the Looking Glass in 1871. Jabberwocky is considered one of the most perfect pieces of nonsense literature and shows Lewis Carroll's agility with word play from an early age. In adulthood his word game Doublets was published in 1879.Footnote 8
He would write two books on logic; The Game of Logic Footnote 9 which was intended to introduce children to the subject and Symbolic Logic Footnote 10 which was a form of mathematical logic. This followed on from the work of George Boole whose principles of Boolean Logic are employed in online searching and which have their roots in Boole's 1854 publication An Investigation of the Laws of Thought on Which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities.
As a career Lewis Carroll chose mathematics, a subject in which he had excelled at school and which was not disassociated from the logic which appealed to his mind. At the time of Alice's creation and from 1855 to 1881 he was lecturing in maths at Christ Church Oxford. Mathematics was topical during the Victorian era and advances were made in both pure and applied mathematics including algebra, logic and statistics. Interestingly the men who founded the ICLR relied a good deal on mathematics to give credence to the financing of their proposalsFootnote 11, cost having been high on the list of instigating factors for reform and their realisation that Government funding would be unforthcoming, quite clear.Footnote 12
Amongst his many activities and one which doubtless appealed to his acute sense of orderliness Lewis Carroll was also sub-librarian at the College from 1855–1857.
Of all his interests photography however was arguably his greatest. It is this interest which would eventually lead him to create Alice. Notably it was lawyers who interested Lewis Carroll in photography.
HOW LAWYERS AND PHOTOGRAPHY LED TO ALICE
Photography was a popular Victorian pastime with an inception date generally given as 1839 when the Frenchman Louis Daguerre designed the daguerreotype. Britain's Great Exhibition in 1851 was to be important in raising awareness of the new art.
Lewis Carroll was introduced to its practice in 1855 by his barrister uncle Skeffington Lutwidge. He quickly took to it as a pastime and excelled in the complex and tricky wet collodion process which replaced the daguerreotype in the early 1850s. In 1856 he visited his acquaintance Sir Frederick Pollock who was not only an aficionado of the art but President of the Photographic Society of London which had been formed in 1853. They discussed photography; Lewis Carroll left persuaded to specialise in portraiture.Footnote 13
It is an anathema to the 21st century mind that in Victorian times photography of children was not condemned but condoned by a society which regarded childhood as a stage of perfect purity. “Heaven lies about us in our infancy!” said Wordsworth in 1807.Footnote 14 Lewis Carroll therefore sought out child subjects for his photographs which in those days was not considered in any way unacceptable.Footnote 15 Of the 3,000 pictures which he is known to have taken in 24 years, over half were of children. The modern mind is disquieted by this fact and has widely debated his motivations; these however remain known only to him.
One child subject was Grace Denman whom Lewis Carroll first encountered on 25 June 1864 at a fête held in Mitcham by Russell Gurney QC, a privy councillor and Recorder of LondonFootnote 16. Just over a week later he visited the child's father to ask permission to take the girl's photograph, a meeting engineered by his Uncle Hassard. Permission was granted and the photograph taken on 8 JulyFootnote 17.
A friendship sprang up between Lewis Carroll and Grace's father and the two correspondedFootnote 18. Grace's father was George Denman QC MP. Denman's name is of significance here for being elected onto the ICLR Bar founding Committee in 1863. This election was curiously against Denman's will, a move for which no outright explanation is given in the ICLR History other than his own intimation that he was placed on it to represent the contra viewFootnote 19.
We do not know whether for any reason Denman mentioned law report reform or the committee meetings to Lewis Carroll although it is interesting that the meetings were taking place regularly at the time of Denman's first encounters with Lewis CarrollFootnote 20. A perusal of their correspondence would in any event be revealing.
It has thus been seen that it was not only lawyers who introduced Lewis Carroll to photography but photography, through the subject of Grace Denman, which forged a direct link between Lewis Carroll and the ICLR Bar founding Committee. Grace Denman was not however his most significant child photographic subject; Alice Liddell comfortably claimed that title.
Alice Pleasance Liddell was the daughter of Henry George Liddell, Dean of Christ Church College. Lewis Carroll first met the Dean in January 1856 on an afternoon stroll and was soon permitted long-term access to the Deanery garden for the purpose of taking and later, of developing his photographs. He met Alice in April 1856 and began taking pictures of her in 1857. He became a friend to her and her three siblings, often taking them on picnic trips downriver to Nuneham Park and relating stories to them: “The stories that he illustrated in this way owed their existence to the fact that Mr Dodgson was one of the first amateur photographers, and took many photographs of us”Footnote 21.
A boating trip on the Thames upriver to Godstow with the three Liddell sisters which was to make literary history took place on 4 July 1862 in the company of Robinson Duckworth, a friend of Lewis Carroll's. Lewis Carroll began to recount a story to the girls, confessing to Duckworth that he was relating it extempore: “Was this an extempore tale, he asked Charles at one point, as he paused his rowing. Oh yes, I am just making it up as I go along, his friend replied”Footnote 22.
Afterwards Alice pestered him to write the story down. Once drafted, he was encouraged by friends to submit the manuscript for publication. The publishing process took a full three years, partly because of difficult decisions over illustrations; Alice was thus published in 1865 but recited three years earlier. Later in a letter written in 1883 Lewis Carroll called Alice the, “one without whose infant patronage I might possibly never have written at all”Footnote 23.
Lewis Carroll's most famous work was therefore, in spite of its recognised excellence and longevity his most frivolously produced; given extempore on an afternoon boat trip and published through what today would be termed “pester power”, a masterpiece nonetheless produced of a genius mind skilled in more than one discipline. Of these disciplines many overlap with the law and are evident in Alice.
LEGAL INFLUENCES IN ALICE
Before examining these and to cast them in greater light it is useful to consider another Victorian pastime – that of Court spectatorship.
This was not an unusual occupation in Victorian days. A better educated public was more aware of legal issues and had an appetite for courtroom drama (in days which long pre-dated reality TV). “Victorian culture was awash with law”Footnote 24.
Lewis Carroll was a regular visitor to the Oxford assizesFootnote 25. His diaries record court visits such as his entry for 2 March 1865 in which he appreciated the, “long and clever speech” of a man tried for sheep stealingFootnote 26. He had an acute sense of fairness and is known to have written to Judges to challenge decisions which he considered to be wrong, such as a letter in 1876 to a judge sentencing a servant girl for murder where he felt mitigating factors had not been consideredFootnote 27.
His debating skills were doubtlessly honed by often watching Counsel in action. T. B. Strong, a Christ Church student during Lewis Carroll's time there and later Dean says: “If he argued, he was somewhat rigid and precise, carefully examining the terms used, relentless in pointing out the logical results of any position assumed by his opponent, and quick to devise a puzzling case when he wanted to bring objections against a rule or principle”Footnote 28.
The above quote might be equally apt if applied to an advocate and points to an adroit use of legal based skills including wordplay, challenging of rules and an interest in logical thought which – as has been seen – had germinated in Lewis Carroll as a child. These influences are evident in Alice as now examined.
First and foremost Lewis Carroll was a genius at wordplay. He was a manipulator of words – as is a lawyer. Lord Templeman said: “The lawyer is a manipulator of words; this is an assertion and not a criticism”Footnote 29.
Lewis Carroll formed his pseudonym by translating his two first forenames Charles Lutwidge into Latin then back into English before finally reversing the order. In Alice he demonstrates a love of puns: purpose/porpoise, lesson/lessen, axis/axes. He forms words incorrectly: “curiouser” is not the comparative of “curious”; he applies Latin declensions to “mouse.”
These processes of wordplay would be unanticipated within the body of the law. Yet other word based processes employed in Alice might seem familiar within a legal context.
Frequent questions demand answers; meanings and definitions are required. “I never heard of `Uglification,’” Alice ventured to say. “What is it?”Footnote 30. “I should like to have it explained” said the Mock Turtle on hearing Alice recite the Lobster-QuadrilleFootnote 31.
There are words we don't understand but they are included all the same. “Speak English!” said the Eaglet. “I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and, what's more, I don't believe you do either!”Footnote 32 Such phraseology is not unheard of from the antagonists of legalese.
The biographer Morton Cohen believes such incomprehensibility is not only intentional but a source of the enduring appeal of Alice because children feel empowered at easily following Alice's adventures in spite of some challenging language.
The following might easily apply to the reading of the law, were “child” substituted by “unaccustomed legal reader” or similar: “Charles's prose is also unconventional. He uses big, polysyllabic words, sophisticated concepts, notions that a child cannot possibly be expected to grasp”Footnote 33.
In total the basic legal tools “word” or “words” are mentioned thirty one times in Alice. “Mean/meaning” is mentioned nineteen times; “rules” no fewer than eight.
“Rules” feature commonly in any basic definition of law. Indeed, a century prior to Alice a comment made by Sir William Blackstone might light-heartedly be said to hint with unwitting foresight at the nonsense rules of Wonderland: “The doctrine of law, then, is this: that precedents and rules must be followed, unless flatly absurd or unjust”Footnote 34.
As seen earlier Lewis Carroll loved rules but he also loved playing around with them. In Alice there are rules which fall well within Blackstone's definition of absurdity. Rule Forty-Two (a favourite number of Lewis Carroll's) is for, “All persons more than a mile high to leave the Court”Footnote 35. Alice seeks out a rule book “for shutting people up like telescopes”Footnote 36 and complains when the Wonderland creatures show patent disregard for croquet rules: “I don't think they play at all fairly,’ Alice began, in rather a complaining tone, ‘and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't hear oneself speak—and they don't seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them”Footnote 37.
Alice is often equally the greatest guardian and challenger of rules. She disputes Rule Forty-Two when asked to leave falsely on its account. “Well, I sha'n't go, at any rate,” said Alice: besides, that's not a regular rule: you invented it just now”Footnote 38.
The creatures detect judicial qualities in Alice; the role of arbitrator is attributed to her over the disputed matter as to whether it is possible to behead a cat with a smile but no body: “The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle the question, and they repeated their arguments to her”Footnote 39. There are further references to positions in law. The Mouse “seemed to be a person of some authority among them”Footnote 40; he is the first one who sees justice in Alice getting a prize too in the “everyone's a winner” Caucas-raceFootnote 41.
In the final chapters Alice enters a court of justice with a judge and jury, yet it is the White Rabbit who earlier had been referred to as “yer honour”Footnote 42.
These are suggested shared elements between Alice and some law based processes and characters. Lewis Carroll's skill in logical thought is also manifest although it is in Through the Looking Glass in 1871 that he refers directly to it: “‘Contrariwise,’ continued Tweedledee, ‘if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic’”Footnote 43.
In Hedley & Byrne Lord Devlin says on logic: “The common law is tolerant of much illogicality, especially on the surface, but no system of law can be workable if it has not got logic at the root of it”Footnote 44.
The Wonderland characters often employ a process of logic albeit one rife with illogicality. Nonetheless a process of reasoning which mirrors legal argument in structure at least is recognisable, as in Alice's encounter with the Cheshire cat: “To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog's not mad. You grant that?” “I suppose so,” said Alice. “Well, then,” the cat went on, “you see a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad”Footnote 45.
In manipulating words, constantly questioning, debating and challenging rules and employing a stream of reasoning to reach logic however nonsensical and illogical these may be and in introducing characters familiar in the law, Lewis Carroll demonstrates in Alice an appreciation of the legal processes which he knew well.
Maths is apparent too in Alice if not overt, but there is a mathematical mind behind Alice's fear of shrinking from ten inches to nothingFootnote 46 and in her attempt to recite the four times tableFootnote 47. In some of Lewis Carroll's fiction writing mathematics is however fundamental such as in the serialised A Tangled Tale which ran from 1880 to 1885 before being published by Macmillan;Footnote 48 maths also features prominently in the ICLR's History and OriginFootnote 49.
Sic [sic] olim meminisse juvabitFootnote 50
It is fitting in this anniversary year to give something of the ICLR history, calling to mind words from the founding father's 1884 narrative: “Sic [sic] olim meminisse juvabit” “And so, one day it will be a pleasure to recall”Footnote 51.
William Thomas Shave Daniel QC was the founder of the ICLR although certainly not the instigator of the need for law report reform of which there had been awareness at least one century previously. Lord Chief Justice Holt's exclamation in 1704, “see the inconveniences of these scambling reports, they will make us appear to posterity for a parcel of blockheads” is well knownFootnote 52. Blackstone spoke of “haste, inaccuracy and sometimes mistakes”Footnote 53.
By 1865 a summary of discontent might be that law reports were too inaccurate, too great in number, too verbose (the word repeatedly used was “prolix”Footnote 54) and too expensive. Words synonymous with “nonsense” were frequently used in reference to case reports including “useless”Footnote 55, “collections of rubbish”Footnote 56 and “twaddle”Footnote 57, the latter referring to the reporting of Attorney-General v Sillim and Others Claiming The “Alexandra” (in 3 Foster & Finlason p646), a matter which Lord Bingham of Cornhill expounded in the ICLR Annual Lecture of 2005 Of Good Report Footnote 58.
By 1865 as many as 21 different series were in place. Sixteen were deemed “authorized”, roughly following the various courtsFootnote 59. Five “unauthorized” series tended towards journal reports such as the Solicitors' Journal founded in 1856Footnote 60. All were in the hands of private reporters. The expense of buying them all was lamented.
The reporting trade was open to any barrister desirous of setting himself up in business. “Free Competition” or “Free Trade” were words spoken often and with disdain by the antagonists of the systemFootnote 61 because of the enormous cost involved in purchasing rival series.
An alarming portrayal of inaccuracy in law reporting from beyond the grave is cited in The Law Review in 1848 regarding Wheeler v. Trotter (3 Swanston, 174.n.). “The case could not in the lifetime of Sir Clement Wearg have made any part of a collection bearing his name, as it was heard by Lord Talbot, Trinity Term, 10 Geo. II (1736), when Sir Clement Wearg had been in his grave nearly ten years”Footnote 62. A connection is not suggested but the tale is reminiscent of The Barrister's Dream in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark 1874–1876 in which a pig is discovered dead upon sentencing; what is however salient in this poem is Lewis Carroll's continued and frequent references to the law.
An expensive, duplicated and delayed law reporting system capable of attributing cases to deceased judges clearly called for amendment yet any attempt prior to 1865 had failed. A Report in 1849 by the Society for Promoting the Amendment of the LawFootnote 63 had failed for the reason that, “it did not contain any scheme for giving effect to a suggestion so valuable and important. It was theoretical and not practical”Footnote 64. The author of these words, W.T.S. Daniel, was the man who would eventually succeed in bringing a scheme to fruition.
Unlike Lewis Carroll about whom we know a good deal, little is written in biography of Daniel although he was chosen as a subject for an amusing “Pen and Ink Sketch in Chancery” produced by an anonymous and jobless character who spends time lounging in the Courts of Chancery. There he makes notes of certain characters including Daniel. Daniel is stout, of indomitable will, of deep voice. Capable of moving the passions to fluctuation, he is exceedingly pertinacious in argument. Our lounger correctly divines that Daniel is resolved to succeedFootnote 65.
Other direct sources on Daniel are scarce although the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography gives some references to his work.
Daniel took his first steps towards law report reform on 18 May 1863 by circulating a paper amongst members of the Bar to test levels of supportFootnote 66. He followed this by a letter to the Solicitor-General Sir Roundell Palmer on 12 September to propose that a Meeting of the Bar be held on the matterFootnote 67.
The letter consumes 35 pages in his History of 325 and is by way of a treatise stating how reporting ought to be, what it is and how to get there including intricate details on subscription pricing for the reports of various courts.
Relatively speaking, his letter in its depth begs some comparison to the quantity of 98,721 letters which Lewis Carroll wrote in 35 years.
It is to Daniel's letter to which Nathaniel Lindley's well known principles are appendedFootnote 68.
In response Palmer posed a challenge; if Daniel could raise sufficient signatures in favour from the Bar a meeting would be held. On failing to persuade Palmer of enough signatories amongst the Common Law Bar Daniel went in person to Westminster Hall. There he gathered a total of 382 names, all listed in his HistoryFootnote 69.
Two of these names stand out. Besides the unenthusiastic George Denman (whom Lewis Carroll would befriend the following year) who signs in brackets (Only as thinking the matter fit to be discussed)Footnote 70 the name of A.F.O. LiddellFootnote 71 is also apparent. Whether or not a relative of Alice Liddell “the ‘real Alice in Wonderland’” signed the petition which led to the ICLR would be the subject of a deeper study.
A meeting in Lincoln's Inn on 2 December 1863 attracted some 700 attendees. There, a Committee of 22 was set up to include the reluctant Mr. DenmanFootnote 72.
Daniel launched a consultation amongst Judges and the Profession on law report reform and received 74 responses of which some are reproduced in full in his HistoryFootnote 73. The cries were almost unanimous; the reports were costly, too many in number, too inaccurate and both too delayed and sporadic.
Interestingly, one of the responses, from J.W. De Longueville Giffard, refers directly to the new art of photography which captivated Lewis Carroll:
“The Reporter should always remain in Court, and his report should be a “photograph” of the case”Footnote 74.
Mathematics, a subject which was progressed in the Victorian era, features strongly in the History. Amongst all of the issues painstakingly discussed that of salaries for Editors and Reporters is regarded as the most delicate and difficult, because the balance between paying salaries sufficient to attract competent individuals in a non commercial organisation is a fine one. “I do not think the Committee had any point so difficult and so delicate to determine as the amount they should propose for those salaries”Footnote 75. Nonetheless the Committee worked out a scheme detailing not only carefully calculated salaries for Editors and Reporters but also a Council Constitution, breakdown of Reports series and subscription prices at £5 5s 0d per annum for the entire set. The Editors' salaries were fixed at £600 per year, (the very sum which Lewis Carroll paid the following year for the reprint of Alice)Footnote 76.
On 28 November 1864 a meeting of the Profession deemed the Scheme largely acceptable. Denman incidentally dissented; refuting persistent claims of law report inaccuracies, fearing either that the scheme would fail for want of adequate circulation or create a monopoly should it succeed, and disapproving of the majority of Chancery over Common Law lawyers as representedFootnote 77.
Yet some 20 years after the first reports, in an 1885 paper in which Nathaniel Lindley reviewed the progress of the scheme he conceded that although it had not provided for, “one set of reports which is alone to be regarded as containing an authoritative exposition of the law”, its financial success was resounding: “so financially successful have the Law Reports proved, that this year the annual subscription, which was only £5 5s., has been reduced to £4 4sFootnote 78.”
The ICLR founders shared with Lewis Carroll rigorous mathematical skills and according to Lindley, “The reporters are much better paid than they were under the old system”Footnote 79. This assuredly begs some comparison with the “Jowett Affair” addressed by Lewis Carroll at a similar point in time and concerning the meagre annual stipend of £40 awarded to Benjamin Jowett Professor of Greek which had been unchanged for 300 years. In 1865 Lewis Carroll produced The New Method of Evaluation as Applied to Pi, a complex if somewhat tongue-in-cheek paper showing the inequitableness of the stipend using Pi.
Lewis Carroll also invested his considerable energies in other commitments which bore strong similarities to Daniel's reform. These notably concerned the reform of the antiquated constitution of Christ Church College in which he played an active role, assiduously attending meetings in Oxford between Feb 1865 and March 1867 and playing an active role in the discussions which led to the Christ Church (Oxford) Act of 1867Footnote 80.
In their shared ability prodigiously to devise and effect complex schemesFootnote 81 (efforts which Lewis Carroll reproduced in his pamphlets on voting theory in the 1870s and 1880s)Footnote 82 it is interesting to see the comparable and contemporaneous projects of Lewis Carroll and W.T.S. Daniel. In referring to failed attempts at law report reform for want of a scheme prior to his own successFootnote 83, Daniel himself had demonstrated that not all men possess the ability to devise a scheme as the one finally attributable to him. The disparate works of Daniel and Lewis Carroll may well share some influences but a truer comparison may be between the efforts of the authors themselves, irrespective of Lewis Carroll's unique qualities.
ALICE IN ENGLISH CASE LAW
This article has attempted to unfurl the shared influences between Lewis Carroll and the ICLR founders and to examine how some of those influences helped shape Alice. 150 years on it is heartening to see how the law has, over the last century, utilised the nonsense work which it helped fashion.
Since 1960Footnote 84 – it took almost a century – Alice in Wonderland has contributed to English case law. The law has found in Alice a concise and universally comprehensible way of voicing the antithesis of what law ought to be; to voice its condemnation of the “flatly absurd or unjust” rules of which Sir William Blackstone spoke. Lady Hale spoke thus in [2012] 1 A.C. 955:
“These rules have an Alice in Wonderland quality which makes it unsurprising that district judges have sometimes had difficulty with them”.
Other examples occur in, “‘Alice in Wonderland’” device of applying to have an action struck out for want of prosecutionFootnote 85; “To me it would be a topsy-turvy Alice in Wonderland law if it were otherwise”Footnote 86; and “fiscal consequences which lingered like the grin of the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland but had no connection with a living body”Footnote 87.
Neither are Charles Lutwidge Dodgson nor Alice Liddell forgotten. The picnic trips which led to Alice are also enshrined in English case law.
In a 2006 appeal case regarding the registration of Common LandFootnote 88 Lord Hoffmann said:
“In those days Frog Lane was called My Lady's Way and led across the Meadow to the nunnery at Godstow where Charles Dodgson and Alice Liddell picnicked and fair Rosamund, mistress of Henry II, lies buried”.
