JUSTICE STARELEIGH’S WIG

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 212, 4 June 1929, Page 3

JUSTICE STARELEIGH’S WIG

ITS ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY SOME INTERESTING LORE (By Sir Edward Parry in the “Morning Post.”) You will remember that on February 14, 1828, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas being indisposed, Mr. •Justice Stareleigh sat for him at the Guildhall to try the case of Bardell v. Pickwick. The reporter Dickens tells us that when he took his seat he placed a “little three-cornered hat” upon his desk, and that then, “all you could see of him was two queer little eyes, one broad pink face, and somewhere about half of a very big and very comical-looking wig.” When this historical trial is represented on the stage it is customary to dress the Judge in a full-bottomed wig. Sartorial experts differ as to the propriety of this. The reporter leaves the matter in doubt. It is true that he describes the wig as “very big,” but'he also says it is “comicallooking.” A fjill-bottomed wig is always dignified. The importance of the question lies in the fact that about this date, though not much before, the wig was recognised as a judicial attribute. Professor Teufelsdrockh, the Clothes-Philosopher, notes in a contemporary work: “Has not your Red hanging-individual a horse-hair wig. squirrel skins, and a plush gown: all mortals know that he is a Judge?”

It was not always so. In the time of Henry VI the red robe and the ermine were there, but the judge wore a flat cap. Judges adopted the periwig, like mortals of commoner clay, when these French head-dresses became fashionable at the end of the sixteenth century. The wig'had then no official signification. But judges on all occasions wore full-bottomed wigs. The fashion of the wig began to decline in popularity about 1750. It continued to be worn by “clergy, judges, barristers, coachmen of the and elderly gentlemen.” Gradually the wig was cast aside by all men of good sense, except judges'and barristers. With them it is -now an official costume, like the helmet of a constable, or the tunic, with broad arrows on it, of a convict. , The full-bottomed wig, however, is now only worn on State occasions. The bob wig is for daily wear. When were these judicial fashions settled? It is a little difficult to say. In the Grace Collection of London Views, a plate of 1727 shows the Judge at the Sessions House, Old Bailey, wearing a full-bottomed wig. In a print of Westminster Hall, of 1797, both barristers and judges are wearing full-bottomed wigs, the latter sitting with their hats on as well. In George Borrow’s “Celebrated Trials there is - a folded engraved frontispiece in the sixth volume tlfat throws light on the problem. It is a careful, detailed topographical picture of the trial of Henry Fauntleroy, banker and forger. The judges were Mr. Justice Park and Baron Garrow.

On a trial of this importance we may be sure that the judges would wear the correct wig, especially as they were visiting the City and sat on each side of the Lord Mayor. Each wears the small wig with the black patch, which is the relic of the Serjeant’s coif. There is a third judicial person on the Bench, probably the Recorder. He too wears a small wig. t Fauntleroy was tried on October 30, 1824, so that we may assume that at this date a High Court Judge visiting the City on an ordinary and not. a State occasion would wear a small wig. The abandonment of the full-bottomed wi” except for ceremonial occasions, by both the Bench ’ and the Bar. seems to date back to the beginning of the nineteenth century. A learned iudge has suggested to me that Mr. Justice Stareleigh may. nevertheless. have worn a full-bottomed wig, because he was sitting on a Saint s Dny, to wit. the feast of St. Valentine. This seems to me- worthy of further and better consideration. It is an enticing subject for investigation, but too extensive nnd abstruse for the ordinary student. It requires n strong committee, judicial, ecclesiastical, sartorial and semptiternal. The British Academy should have leisure for it.