Judges and barristers: big wigs

The tradition of court dress in England was first documented in the reign of King Edward III (1327-77). At the time, a long robe, cowl and cloak became standard dress for attending the royal court. The material for the robes, ermine, taffeta and silk, was given to judges in the form of a grant from the crown. The colours were violet in winter, green in summer, and scarlet for best. However it was not until 1635 that a formal guide to court dress was published in the Judges’ Rules i.e which robes, lace jabots and wigs should be worn.

Regarding wigs in court, lawyers were expected to appear in court with clean, short hair and beards until the C17th. Wigs made their first appearance in a courtroom simply because that’s what was being worn in fashionable circles; the reign of King Charles II (1660-1685) made wigs essential wear for polite society. The judiciary, however, took some time to convince; portraits of judges from the early 1680s showed judges defiantly sporting their own natural hair. Wigs did not seem to have been adopted wholesale until many years after the Judges’ Rules were published.

The Courts and Tribunals Judiciary documents are full of inform­ation, but I cannot see why wigs were mandated for judges and barristers. Yes wigs were worn inside the court room because that was the headgear that was being worn outside it, especially in France. Consider two trends. Firstly the reign of France’s King Louis XIV (1643-1715) was powerful. All his court was known to use wigs, and as France set the fashions across Europe, the use of wigs spread to all Europ­ean courts. It was said that King Louis had 40 wig makers designing his wigs at Versailles! Secondly with the restoration of the British monarchy and of British pride, the reign of King Charles II (1660-1685) made wigs essential wear for polite society. Charles was going to set trends for his own nation, not blindly follow continental fashions.

British barristers (short wigs) and Queen's Counsels (long wigs) 

on a ceremonial occasion in 2013.

I think fashionable French style DID create the idea in the first place, but British judges were more pragmatic than that. Wigs became popular because unhygienic conditions in the C17th meant that hair attracted a lot of head lice. Artificial headpieces could be more easily de-loused. And for older men, with thinning white hair or no hair at all, well groomed wigs may have made the judges look younger, healthier and more judicious. Worst of all syphilis caused open sores, nasty rashes and patchy hair loss. No judge wanted his genital diseases to be discussed in public.

And another important thing to consider. In criminal courts in particular, the wig took on important symbolic power; it represented authority, gravitas and a concern for community security, and it put the fear of god into the miscreant in the dock. Perhaps wigs also gave the judges some anonymity, making them harder to identify in public.

King George III's reign (1760-1820) saw wigs gradually go out of fashion. By the end of the century they were worn by bish­ops, coachmen, parliamentary officials and the legal profession – and even bishops soon got permission to discard them. Judges wore only full-bottomed wigs until the 1780s; then the less formal, smaller bob-wig with a short tail at the back but no curls, was adopted for civil trials. The full-bottomed wig continued to be used for criminal trials until the 1840s, but is now reserved for ceremonial dress; smaller wigs are used on a day-to-day basis in criminal courts.

Fashions come and fashions go. And to show that judges’ wigs were not just a fashion statement, consider what happened in the late C18th when the wig fashion was dying out. French citizens stopped buying wigs during the French Revolution (1789–1799), and British citizens stopped wearing wigs after William Pitt taxed hair powder from 1795 on. By the new century, judges and barristers were virtually the only men in Britain wearing wigs.

Sometimes changes to the court structure itself had a major effect on what was worn by British judges. The High Court, for example, was created by Acts in 1873-5, absorbing the courts of Chancery, Admiralty, Probate and Matrimonial Causes. This led to a new dress dilemma since trial judges in these courts were used to wearing plain black silk gowns. These judges were allowed to keep the familiar dress code, and thus black silk gowns are still worn by judges in many courts today.

By the end of WW2, I am assuming the ordinary citizen felt that judicial wigs were old fashioned, pompous, intimidating and out of touch with the modern world.

In April 2008 British criminal barristers were told to keep wearing wigs and special gowns because the Lord Chief Justice approved of the existing dress standards. Formality and robes were required, he said, because there was strong identif­ic­ation with the Bar of England and Wales on one hand, and its formal dress on the other. At least in the public's mind. For the most part, changes would only affect what would be worn by judges in civil courts - a simplified robe and no wig.

Almost all British Commonwealth countries adopted British court outfits, before and after winning national sovereignty. In the High Court of Australia, for example, justices have not worn wigs, collars, bands or lace jabots at the neck or bar jackets since 1988. Except for ceremonial occasions. Strangely enough, judges of the Family Court of Australia (where informality might be most welcomed) still wear a black silk gown, a bar jacket with bands or a lace jabot, and a bench wig. In New Zealand, court dress was greatly simplified in 1996 and wigs have only been worn, since that date, for ceremonial occasions eg the state opening of Parliament. In Canada, different provinces ended the use of judicial wigs at different times, the last province in 2008.