Kate Morgan – The Walnut Tree: Women, Violence and the Law (2024)

Review

Billed as a “hidden history” in its sub-subtitle, like many popular history works, this somewhat oversells its unveiling of new stories to those who know anything much about the period under investigation. Still, as a Victorianist and someone who writes historical crime fiction set in the period, generally focused on women, I definitely found some nuggets of interest here. Unfortunately, they were slightly under-sourced, but there’s definitely enough to go on for a specialist to track down the full detail.

For those who know relatively little about the period—perhaps about when divorce became more available for women, or about the horrendous Contagious Diseases Acts—there is much to discover, though. Morgan focuses on those cases that garnered enough public attention that they contributed to changes in the law and its applications. This is an interesting framing because it makes the theme much more engaging for a non-specialist audience—storytelling really is at the heart of good communications, after all!—but it does mean that we lack a detailed chronological arc, and as a consequence there are some repetitive passages. Towards the end, I did find myself skimming some segments where they were reiterating what we’d already learned some time before.

The book is useful for those generally interested in the period because it also helps us sift fact from fiction. There are plenty of misapprehensions about the Victorian period, which in some ways still feels so close to our own, and historical crime fiction often emphasises the absolute worst in terms of sex trafficking and abuse. The reality is sometimes a little more mundane, but no less horrifying, and contextualising this as structural, rather than individual, is always valuable.

As a history, Morgan’s book comes fairly late to the broader theme of what light these stories tell us about the continued relationship between violence, women, and the law in the UK. This is a little odd, as it is a topic otherwise regularly aired (although generally because things are not always improving!). For example, Jess Phillips annually reads the names of women killed by romantic partner in Parliament. All British soaps have done marital (and in-relationship) rape stories periodically, giving them a chance to inform and educate. Adolescence is on the top of most people’s recommended TV list at the moment. Provoked is a fantastic film (although now 20 years old) still recommended to law students. The New Yorker‘s podcast on “The Runaway Princesses” reflects on how even in the UK today women are not safe from being treated as chattel.

How women are treated by men remains violent, and the violence often worsened by the law. This is a useful, if partial, insight into some of the roots of our circumstances today.

See also

These lists capture other stories and characters that I thought of as I was reading this piece. I won’t explain why, to avoid spoilers, but they’re associations and not ‘if you liked this, then you’ll love…’ recommendations!

• The Worst Street in London (Fiona Rule)
• Honour (Elif Shafak)
• Rachel Ablow’s article on the Married Women’s Property Act 1870

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Take a look at my short story collection featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies; order now! Or check out my academic work about detective and crime fiction (free PDFs available) right here.