‘A haven for the privileged’: Recruitment into the profession of attorney in England, 1709–1792

Abstract

The attorney is the direct ancestor of the present-day solicitor. During the eighteenth century the two words were used to distinguish between the practitioners in common law and those who dealt largely in the Court of Chancery. The title of attorney disappeared in England following the Judicature Acts of 1873 which laid down that henceforth all distinctions between the two theoretically separate occupations were to be swept away and the title of solicitor conferred on all members of the profession.' Today, the profession of solicitor is riddled with our society's hallmarks of respectability, the most significant of which is that it recruits largely from the middle class. Historians have usually traced this growth in respectability on the part of solicitors, as with the lower branches of the other traditional professions, to the early nineteenth century. At this time there was already in existence a large and 'respectable' middle class of which the attorneys and solicitors formed an important part. It seemed wrong, however, to suggest that such a body of men had only recently come into being at that time. Perhaps large numbers of professional people had existed at least as far back as the early eighteenth century, living by their own standards of 'respectability' and unnoticed outside their respective localities. This article shows, through its evidence on recruitment patterns, that with the attorneys this was indeed the case. Such men were, however, respected more as individuals than as a group, and this respect was dependent both upon their talents and legal knowledge, and also upon the wealth and life-style which their occupation conferred upon them. Individual merit, therefore, counted for a great deal in that it was up to the respective practitioner to carve out a career for himself. Nevertheless, as we shall see, the exigencies of training and setting-up in business ensured that only a relatively small proportion of those articled to attorneys were ever given the opportunity to make the grade of master practitioner.