1. Socio-legal research: theorists and fact gatherers -- 2. The need for a social history of legal institutions -- 3. The contribution to law reform of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science -- 4. The statistical contribution to law reform of Sir John Macdonnell -- 5. The case of imprisonment for debt -- 6. The case of family law
Summary
The topic of the 1979 series of Hamlyn Lectures, given by O. R. McGregor, was the way in which law operates in society. To illustrate this constantly shifting and subtle relationship, the author analyses the complex links between legal, social, and historical research on the one hand and the movement for law reform on the other. In the first part of the book some of the consequences that have flowed from the historiography of English legal institutions are considered, followed by an examination of the ways in which some Victorian law reformers tried to adapt the law to social change. O. R. McGregor then applies his conclusions to two branches of the civil law - the breakdown of marriage and debt - which are of extensive and direct concern to many
