Breach of Promise to Marry by Denise Bates

Author:Denise Bates
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: JH; TRU000000; TRUE CRIME / General
ISBN: 9781473831889
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2014-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

There are hints that high awards were made to compensate middle-class ladies for emotional injury during the late eighteenth century but little firm evidence remains. Average damages began to rise from 1805 when juries may have started to link their award to the value of a life annuity. They peaked at £1,100 between 1816-20, and between 1810-20 four of the ten highest awards of damages by English juries were made, if the twentieth century cases relating to bigamous marriages are excluded. The other six were made in or after 1890 when the value of money had been reduced by inflation.

Damages of £7,000 (currently worth £508,000) were awarded to Mary Alice Orford at Lancaster in 1818, in a claim that lacked any aggravating aspects. Mary was not seduced, her engagement lasted for only two months and the defendant, 22-year-old Thomas Cole, had not behaved in a vicious manner. An unusual feature was age, as Mary was almost 30. Cole argued that she was a mature and calculating woman, who had entrapped him into proposing. The jury chose not to treat this as mitigation and awarded Mary the equivalent of Cole’s annual income, whilst the judge refused him permission to appeal, even though the damages were £2,000 more than the previous highest award; an exemplary one arising from the offensive manner in which the defendant had ended the engagement. Precisely what Mr Robinson had written to Miss Bishop is unknown, as it was too scandalous to be reported by the press.

Four months later, Emma Hardum was awarded £4,000 by a Devonshire jury after she was jilted by a distant cousin. It seems possible that after this verdict senior law officers addressed the use of the annuity method because damages then decreased noticeably. Ann Beathe was also awarded £4,000 in 1820, but her case was exceptional. Not only was Ann the second woman to be jilted by wealthy Samuel Pearson, her distress was such that she spent some weeks in a Manchester lunatic asylum.

In the 1820s average damages plummeted to £385 and by the 1840sthey had fallen to £206. Two external factors may be involved. The economy was depressed until the end of the ‘hungry forties’ and jurors may have felt less generous in harsh economic times, even with other people’s money. More significantly, the financial standing of defendants altered as more lower-middle-class men found themselves in court. A claim against a man of moderate means could not be valued as highly as a claim against a rich one.

Cases settled outside court in the 1840s demonstrate that middle-class plaintiffs preferred to negotiate settlements rather than allow their damages to become public knowledge. When Miss Harbottle reputedly received £4,000 from wealthy industrialist John Rylands, in 1845, both parties retained a team of legal specialists to look after their interests. How much a middle-class woman desereved for her broken heart was becoming a matter of conjecture.

During the 1850s, the average level of damages drifted upwards again and peaked at £390 in the following decade, probably reflecting the prosperous economy.

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