Fire Courts ….. property disagreements and a novel way to solve a legal backlog

One to listen to with echoes of today, on the wireless.  

The Long View Radio 4.

"Although not dominating the COVID headlines the backlog of legal cases in the UK is taking a heavy toll on everyone from the people involved who are seeking resolution to the legal profession itself. 

That's the story today, but it was also the story back in 1666 when after a year of plague and then the Great Fire of London, our capital city was crippled by a legal backlog which made economic recovery and the rebuilding that it required all but impossible. 

The challenge then was to deal with all the cases to do with Landlords and Leaseholders who had lost everything in the fire and so couldn't afford to begin the rebuilding process.

Jonathan is joined by the historian Professor Jay Tidmarsh who will tell the story of the Fire Courts and Fire Judges, set up to deal with the backlog as quickly and efficiently as possible. 

What they did, how the courts operated and just how much work they got through in less than a decade might provide some ideas for today's legal practitioners. 

To compare the history with the present Jonathan also hears from the Chair of the Bar Council Amanda Pinto and Sir Ernest Ryder a Lord Justice of Appeal, master of Pembroke College, Oxford and a law reformer.

That's the Long View of Legal Backlogs".

Producer: Tom Alban

Location; London

Pictures;  The Great Fire of London, 1675, Museum of London, The Great Fire of London, with Ludgate and Old St. Paul's, circa 1670, Yale Centre for British Arts

*The Long View of Legal Backlog, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000pmw2

A little bit of London's history at the Geffrye Museum and a holiday opportunity

It will have been in the spring of 1961 and I was in the final year of Edmund Waller Junior School and it was one of those school excursions.

The Hall, 1630, © Geffrye Museum

Now this was pre National Curriculum when if the sun was shining the opportunities for a day out were all that was needed to make it happen.

Of course I am sure even then there would have been a cursory stab at parental consent and then with the signed letters, our bus fare handed over to Miss Rhodes we were off on one of those bright crisp mornings which were full of strong sunshine and offered a day of promise.

The one dark shadow was my persistent tendency to feel ill on buses, and more than once Miss Rhodes started across at me and her glance was enough to confirm that she regretted the very day I had walked into her class.

Still the day went well and once again I was lost in the history of old things which in this case was the Geffrye Museum, a place I have only been in once since.

The Living room, 1965, © Geffrye Museum

But judging by its web site which offers the story of “how homes have changed in the past 400 years.

The museum’s eleven period rooms span from 1600 to the present day. Each room represents the main living space used by a family and their guests.

How people would have lived in the rooms, alongside the furnishings, lighting and heating, show how homes and home life have changed over time, reflecting changes in society, behaviour, style, taste and the wider world.”

Now with half term beckoning I can think of nowhere better to spend a day.

And for those like me who last went a long time ago it will be a lesson in how your youth has become history for along with a 1630 hall, and parlour from 1745 are rooms given over to a living room in 1965 and a loft style apartment from 1998.

And that I think is all I want to say.

Picture; the Hall, 1630 and living room 1965, © Chris Ridley/Geffrye Museum of the Home

* Geffrye Museum, www.geffrye-museum.org.uk