Divorce in 1914

[Bookbox]

I think - don't know for sure - that Ancestry will have the same papers.

Ancestry recently updated their coverage of J77 to include cases up to 1914. The file at TNA will be the same as you see online.

[lisat]

Thanks Bookbox, I thought so. Didn't want to waste money duplicating things.

[modem]

My great grandfather divorced my great grandmother in 1918 on the grounds of her adultery. He was  a worker in a cement factory at the time. I obtained the divorce papers from TNA and according to them he was granted financial assistance with the divorce because he was a "Poor Person".

[lisat]

That's interesting. I found some info online that said from 1914 some legislation was introduced to do precisely that, making a divorce cost under £10, and thus making it more available for the poorer people. My husbands Jewish ancestor may have been better off than I reckoned, he states on the Divorce papers that he was a moneylender! Also, the corespondent was a furrier, so although they weren't aristocracy, they weren't really poor. Thanks.

[nanny jan]

When my 2xgt.aunt divorced her husband in 1903 she was also classed as a Poor Person ( In Forma Pauperis); she was a midwife.

[stanmapstone]

It is a common belief that you had to be wealthy to get a divorce after 1858,  the very poor could sue without payment of fees 'in forma pauperis' if they could prove their lack of means.  The real opening of divorce to all classes did not take place until the 1920s, with the extension of legal aid, and the provision of some local facilities.

In 1914 poor persons possessed of less than £50 (excluding clothes and trade tools) or a woman earning less than £2 a week, could be given the services of a solicitor and counsel without charge, providing that the out-of-pocket expenses of the solicitor and witnesses were paid. Eighty-eight did so that year. This effectively reduced the cost of a divorce to less than £10. By 1920 some forty per cent of divorces were thus assisted. The remainder normally cost about £50 to £60.
https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Divorce_in_England_and_Wales

Stan

[lisat]

Very interesting Stan. I hadn't realised that.