Creating the Citizen Juror in Interwar England and Wales

Abstract

This article assesses developments in the theory and practice of jury service in England and Wales between the two world wars. It argues that this was a transformative period in the English jury’s history, in which both public and administrative understandings of the system shifted away from a model predicated primarily on the possession of landed property of a certain value, and towards a model built around developing notions of citizenship. This was more generally a period in which understandings of citizenship, as distinct from mere subjecthood, were also developing. The article argues that developments in citizenship generally, and in the practicalities of jury service more specifically, are intimately connected. By analysing the interwar jury as a citizenship institution, we deepen our understanding both of citizenship practices and of the jury during this important period in the shift towards something approaching democratic forms of governance.