The Tears of Mr Justice Willes.

Abstract

Sir James Shaw Willes (1814–1872) was a weeping judge, shedding tears into his notebook while hearing evidence and sobbing bitterly when passing the sentence of death. Victorian courtrooms provided a theatrical context for the performance of tears, not only by defendants and the public, but also by judges. Constructing a microhistory of Willes's tears, based on the philosophy, science, medicine and religion of the mid-Victorian period, drawing on newspaper and periodical sources as well as theoretical and literary works, this article offers new perspectives on the multiple meanings of Victorian tears, going beyond the identification of tearfulness with the domains of ‘sentiment’ and ‘emotion’. Weeping was a complex performance that could reveal inward thoughts and individual or collective sensations. A flow of tears could signify civilization or primitivism, health or disease, self-pity or sympathy. From a theological point of view, there were biblical precedents for weeping as a gesture of both compassion and lamentation; while the book of Revelation promised a heaven where there would be ‘no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying’.