King's Bench in Westminster
Recreating the courtroom required studying numerous maps and architectural plans as well as contemporary drawings, paintings and etchings of both Westminster Hall and the law courts of Chancery and King’s Bench. These were produced at different times and shaped by the aims of the artists, or by instructions from architects to the surveyors drew them. All of which results in some discrepancies between what features are depicted, relative size and the various measurements taken.
In 1739 the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice requested that the ‘ramshackle’ wooden boards that enclosed the courts of Chancery and King’s Bench should be replaced. Yet it was soon established that even these rudimentary fixtures were now beyond repair and a more comprehensive rebuilding was required.
Architect William Kent (1685-1748) designed two chambers (initially without ceilings) divided by a narrow corridor to fit on the dais at the Southern end of the great Hall. The courts were enclosed behind an impressive, gothic style stone façade, with a central arch and passage leading through to a corridor that linked them to the House of Commons.
In an age that valued neo-classical designs, the initial reaction to this ‘confection’ of ogee arches, quatrefoils, pilasters and pineapples was not always positive. But it conveyed a sense of the national importance of the courts and provided an equally impressive entrance to the Houses of Parliament behind beyond.
The large bow windows admitted some light from the huge, gloomy, and often chilly Hall. This plan from 1746 suggests that initially the windows may not have been glazed, but later images depict windows that could also be opened from below.
A very simplified version of Kent’s Gothic screen is depicted in this satirical image. It accompanied a humorous verse about how Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, lawyers and their clients fled from King’s Bench mid-trial, fearing that the ancient hammerbeam roof (which weighed over 600 tons) was falling in. In fact, a maidservant had tipped her bucket through the skylight above the court (visible top left).
A letter of 1755 notes that a ceiling was by then present, but this confirms there was also another source of light from above the court in 1785. The scene shows lawyers climbing through the bottom of a window to escape, watched by two others from Chancery next door. It is equally possible that this may have become a way to climb into the often very crowded King’s Bench courtroom.
A small gap is visible on a plan of King’s Bench courtrooms and its fittings (below left). It is a copy from an earlier plan but drawn by surveyors employed by architect Sir John Soane prior to completing his own designs for the new courts.
The measurements, added later by a different hand, show the interior dimensions of the court were very small indeed: just 29 ft wide and 28ft 6” long to the short edge of the bow window. This allowed a shorter bench within the bow of the window with space behind it. The arrangement enabled six rows of seating for lawyers and the public, because the front bench and desk was reserved for King’s Counsel only.
The main access to both King’s Bench and Chancery was through heavy curtains covering the open spaces between the stone screen and passage partitions walls. These would have done little to prevent noise from each court and the Hall from interrupting proceedings.
The judges and their clerks sat at the South end of both courts, but there was seating for the jury only in King’s Bench (left) because Chancery was a court of Equity law that did not require a jury to decide cases.
Two plans dated c. 1823 after the old court had been dismantled, nevertheless suggest they were based on earlier surveys of Kent’s courtroom before 1820. A diagram of the older court fittings set within the dimensions of a plan for the new court (below) provides a good indication of how the courtroom was set up.
The court has therefore been designed to reflect the hierarchy of participants and segmented into different areas. Monarchical power is conferred to the judges, whose court officials are the clerk at the desk beneath them. Jurors and litigants are beneath and to one side of them. Shorthand trial reporters and journalists may have sat next to the jury box. Their role was to ensure public justice was seen to be done by informing their readers of what was said during the proceedings of a trial.
The higher status King’s Counsel, whose advocacy was increasingly important to adversarial trial outcomes, have their own desk and seating with access to the well of the court. To their right influential or ‘fashionable’ spectators (who almost certainly paid) could sit but not access the judicial space. It is. To Junior lawyers squeeze onto benches behind senior counsel, but less wealthy public spectators are relegated to spaces around the edges or, possibly reserving space on the benches.
It is most likely that the original fittings from the courtroom prior to its removal in 1820 were retained and rebuilt in the Westminster Sessions House on Parliament square which acted as temporary accommodation until the new courts were built. Soane commissioned a cross-sectional survey of that court, which shows there was little room for lawyers to sit comfortably for long trials. While some early C18th written reports recorded just four benches, it is most likely this changed over time. Three of Soane’s surveys depict six rows of benches behind the King’s Counsel’s seating. They occupied a space 11ft 3” deep, leaving just 1’1” leg room between tiers – less than most modern economy airline seats.
The curved design of the benches in the Court provided room for more men to sit within a space measuring approximately 22 ft. Given an average late eighteenth-century male height of 5ft 6” and a (rough average) width of 22-23” perhaps 13-14 men could have sat on each bench although graphic prints show many more squeezed in. For a modern comparison, numerous economy airline seats are now an uncomfortable 17” wide.
Nevertheless, the demand for seats from junior lawyers and the public in significant trials was frequently high. One American lawyer training at Middle Temple explained that there was a “reservation system” for ensuring his seat and that of another American visiting lawyer in the courtroom.
The Hall outside was thronged with barristers, King’s Counsel, Sergeants, solicitors (usually called attorneys) and their suitors, as well as ‘gentlemen’ and visitors of both sexes. The judges rooms were outside the West wall of the Hall, which required walking publicly through the open the Hall – a process they complained was particularly inconvenient in winter, but also risked their running into lawyers and unhappy suitors with vested interests in a case.
Many lawyers met their clients or socialised in the coffee houses and pubs, most of which occupied buildings at the Northern end of Westminster Palace, also necessitating a public walk through the Hall to court. The plan below records that the Hall was 238ft 10” long x 66ft 8” (although it is more often described as 240 x 69ft). It also shows where all four courts were situated, the judges’ chambers and rooms and the locations of two pubs and three coffee houses.
The start of a new Legal Term, however, was marked by a more formal procession. Henry Marchant, a Rhode Island lawyer, was particularly impressed by the ceremonial Hilary Term procession of 1772. He noted it was led by the Lord Chancellor (Chancery) followed by the Lord Chief Justice and three puisne (less senior) judges of King’s Bench, then the judges of Common Pleas and the Barons of Exchequer.
The image (right) of Westminster Hall, depicts a procession of judges and lawyers watched by visitors in 1801. However, its colours and details are muted (in another version the judges’ robes are tinted red) and the focus, as in most depictions of the hall, is primarily on the magnificent hammerbeam roof. The figures tend to enhance the perspective rather than provide detailed depictions. Kent’s gothic screen can be seen at the far end and, an entrance that led to the court of Common Pleas and the Judges rooms on the right.
Pugin and Rowlandson’s later view presents a clearer but still impressive perspective. Barristers and attorneys are shown mingling with clients, three are climbing the steps to the other courts (below). The aim was to convey Westminster’s historical importance as the site of national institutions of law and government to support a constitutional monarchy.
Dr Nicola Phillips
