Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 6 - ‘The Bengal Boiler’

  • Edited by Michael Lobban, London School of Economics and Political Science, Ian Williams, University College London
  • Book:
    Networks and Connections in Legal History
    Published online:
    10 August 2020
    Print publication:
    03 September 2020, pp 124-151

  • Summary

    In Calcutta in the 1860s, there was litigation in the newly established High Court over the rights of Indians who worked the land. Using English legal concepts, the chief justice saw the agriculturists as being little more than tenants-at-will. He arranged to sit with judges who supported his views until he went on a temporary visit to England. In his absence, two judges decided a case in which attention was given to the customs of Bengal and more extensive rights were accorded to numerous rural workers. After the return of the chief justice, the conflicting case law precipitated what contemporaries came to call The Great Rent Case. A Full Bench of the High Court now found, by a large majority, for those who worked the land. It was as if the new High Court had discovered sufficient self-confidence to assert itself within the colonial life of Bengal. The present study explains the process of judicial decision-making by reference to the influence of three colonial networks in Calcutta.