Tickets are now on sale for our evening with author KATE MORGAN to talk about her new book THE WALNUT TREE: WOMEN, VIOLENCE AND THE LAW, A HIDDEN HISTORY.
“A woman, a dog and a walnut tree, the more they are beaten, the better they’ll be” So went the proverb quoted by a prominent MP in the Houses of Parliament in 1853.
But were things about to change?
Kate investigates some of the most infamous legal cases and individual injustices of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, and explores how these ground-breaking cases informed how modern justice relates to women. The book contains some really hair-raising stories, including the Clitheroe wife abduction, the controversies surrounding the Contagious Diseases Act and the women who campaigned to abolish it; and the real courtroom stories behind notorious murder cases such as the Camden Town Murder, so we know this is going to be an enlightening and consciousness-raising evening!
Kate Morgan is a writer and former solicitor. She worked as a senior in-house lawyer in the water industry for most of her legal career. Long fascinated with the darker side of the law, her writing focuses on British legal history and the stories behind the important cases that have shaped the law over the centuries. Her first book, Murder: The Biography, was published in 2021.