- To provide students with a wider context to their law degree and to foster curiosity in how doctrine develops in tandem with society.
- To facilitate independent research and encourage critical analysis of legal documents in historical context.
- To challenge students to think critically about the law as a whole, and encourage historical, socio-legal, and intersectional analysis.
- To contribute to diversification of the curriculum by exploring narratives of inequality and subordination within the law, specifically the treatment of women, the enslaved, and indigenous peoples under English common law in England and the British Empire.
- To attract students interested in research-centric areas of the legal profession e.g. academia, the law commission, and provide an opportunity to develop interdisciplinary research skills.

(LO1) Students will be able to demonstrate detailed knowledge of key developments in English legal history from a socio-legal standpoint, including an over-arching understanding of historic jurisdictional shifts in the English legal system, and specific events and issues that arose at the intersection of these shifts.

(LO2) Students will be able to recognise and critically evaluate the ways societal inequalities have been reflected in law over time and the extent to which these issues persist today.

(LO3) Students will be able to reflect on the social impact of certain legal developments and be able to engage in intersectional analysis through comparisons across topics covered.

(LO4) Students will be able to identify and critically analyse primary legal sources using socio-legal and legal-historical methods.

(S1) Independent research skills
The module will centre around a series of workshops. Students will be provided with resources and guided through basic historical research skills. Students will then be invited to use this knowledge to conduct their own historical enquiry. The coursework will be partly assessed on the basis of students’ ability to independently analyse primary sources.

(S2) Historical methodology skills
Students will be engaging in legal-historical analysis and, as such, using a methodology that is different to legal analysis. Students will learn, through the workshops, how to interpret legal sources in historical context.

(S3) Digital literacies
The module will make use of a number of online databases (for example, The Old Bailey online, the UCL Legacies of British Slavery database). Students will be invited to navigate their own way around these digital archives and find primary sources to analyse.

(S4) Critical analysis and communication skills
Students will be assessed via a 2500 word piece of coursework, which will be assessed, in part, on argument, structure, cogency, and narrative flow.

Indicative Syllabus
- Builds upon the module Criminal law.
- Builds upon the module Contract Law.
- Builds upon the module Equity and Trusts.
Lecture topics:
Introduction: Why is legal history important?
- England’s changing legal jurisdictions.
- Internal/ external legal histories.
- Feminist legal history.
The ‘Bloody Code’ and legal fictions
- The rise and fall of England’s ‘bloody code’.
- Discretion within the English criminal justice system, including the prevalence of legal fictions. For example, Benefit of clergy, Juries of Matrons.
- Gender, race and crime.
The law of slavery
- Eighteenth-century case law that determined the legal status of enslaved people in eighteenth-century England.
- The impact of the 1807 and 1833 Slavery Acts.
- Compensation to Slavers.
Married Women’s Separate Property
- The im pact of the doctrine of coverture.
- Married women’s separate estate.
Colonialism and the doctrine of Terra Nulius
- ‘Transplantation’ of the common law to Australia.
- Legacies of Indigenous law in Australia.

Workshop topics:
How to understand and analyse a primary legal source
- Records versus reports.
- The mediation of sources.
- Online databases: The Old Bailey online, London Lives online, The Anglo-American Legal Tradition, The UCL Legacies of Slavery database.

Teaching Method 1: Lecture

Scheduled Directed Student Hours: 12

Description: The key aim of the lectures is to provide information regarding the law and historical context in relation to the discrete topics identified in the syllabus. The topics covered will prepare students for independent study and the workshops by providing the necessary information and background knowledge to engage with primary sources. Students will need to refer to historical context in the coursework.
Attendance Recorded: Yes

Teaching Method 2: Workshop

Scheduled Directed Student Hours: 12

Description: The key aim of the workshops will be to work with primary historical sources in preparation for the coursework. Each workshop will therefore consist of a historical research skills session, followed by independent or small-group selection and exploration of sources under supervision. Students will be expected to complete independent reading in preparation for workshops . Library resources will be accessible through the module reading list. Other key learning resources, for example the online databases, will accessible through links on CANVAS. Students are expected to engage with all required readings, and to demonstrate further reading on the topic chosen for coursework.
Attendance Recorded: Yes

Self-Directed Learning Hours: 127
Description: This will include time spent in preparing for classes and time spent in completing the final assessment.