Hypocrisy and morality

Josiah Wedgwood MP and the hotel divorce

A recent note by Sir James Munby, president of the High Court family division from 2013 to 2018, reminds us of the extraordinary changes in public morality over the past century.

“For a man to be divorced for adultery,” he writes, “was socially and politically unacceptable. But, in contrast, it was seemingly not beyond the pale for a public figure to admit that he had been willing to manipulate the divorce process and even possibly, on [one judge’s] view, to have committed a criminal offence in doing so.”

The public figure in question was Colonel Josiah Clement Wedgwood, an MP for 36 years, 1st Baron Wedgwood and great-great-grandson of the Josiah Wedgwood who founded the eponymous pottery company in 1759.

As Munby observes in the note he kindly shared with me, the affair seemed to have done Wedgwood no harm. Indeed, there is a small but distinguished street named after him in Jerusalem, as well as Wedgwood Streets in other Israeli cities that may confuse collectors of pale blue unglazed stoneware.

The former judge’s research into Wedgwood’s divorce provides a footnote an earlier two-part article by Munby, titled “Institutionalised Dishonesty and Hypocrisy: Divorce in the 1920s”. That paper appeared last year in the journal Family Affairs, which is published for members of the Family Law Bar Association. Unfortunately, it’s not a journal to which I have access. But I shall do my best to set the scene.

Josiah Wedgwood in uniform (left) and later as an MP in 1911

Until the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 became law, divorce was possible only with a private act of parliament, among other requirements. But that groundbreaking legislation did not prevent the courts from enforcing the obligations of marriage between couples who had not been divorced.

In 1882, Georgina Weldon, whose husband Henry had left her, was granted a decree ordering the restitution of her conjugal rights. Henry Weldon recognised his obligation to support his wife — he had rented a cottage with two servants for her in rural Acton — but he declined to join her there. So she persuaded the High Court to order his imprisonment for refusing to obey the court order.

As Stephen Cretney records in his magisterial history of family law, the government reacted swiftly to protect husbands by passing a new Matrimonial Causes Act — but not so swiftly that Weldon didn’t have to spend nine months wondering whether the court tipstaff was going to carry him off to prison.

Although this was not immediately appreciated, the Matrimonial Causes Act 1884 made divorce easier.

The first step, as Wedgwood no doubt explained to his wife, was to obtain a a decree for the restitution of conjugal rights. That could be proved by a somewhat contrived exchange of correspondence, which in Wedgwood’s case was fully reported in the Times law report (see below).

On 14 May 1917, Ethel Wedgwood wrote to her husband from her home in Hampshire:

Dear Josiah,

We have been living apart now for nearly four years, and I feel it is not only a very painful and lonely position for myself at my age and after many years of joint married life, but it is also very bad for our children, especially the younger ones, that things should go on as they are.

For the sake of their future and for the benefit of us all, I do therefore earnestly beg you to assist me again in building up a secure and happy home life for them, and to take the first step towards it by returning to live with me.

Believe me, my dear Josiah, always yours affectionately,

Ethel Wedgwood

Wedgwood replied from Chelsea three days later:

Dear Ethel,

It is useless. I have thought over it very carefully, and I really cannot return to live with you and remake again a joint home. In four long years the affections change.

I shall never lose the respect you inspired in me, but the old love is dead, and I will not attempt to revive it. This is my final decision.

Sincerely,

Josiah C. Wedgwood

A decree of restitution was pronounced the following year by Mr Justice McCardie — remembered by some for shooting himself in the head in 1933, apparently to escape from gambling debts, blackmail, two long-term mistresses and an unacknowledged son.

As planned, Wedgwood failed to comply with the restitution decree. That amounted to desertion and meant Ethel could immediately seek a divorce provided there was also evidence of adultery. Conveniently, her husband had been seen with an unknown woman at the Charing Cross Hotel.

The Times, 28 May 1918 and 11 December 1918

A decree nisi was granted by Mr Justice Coleridge later in 1918. The following Sunday, Wedgwood was denounced from the pulpit in his constituency of Newcastle-under-Lyme by a local vicar, the Rev Arthur Sinker. Summoning the shades of the Great War, Sinker asked:

are they to look down and behold us content to leave Newcastle to speak in the great council of the nation through the voice of an adulterer?

Wedgwood should be kicked out of parliament, Sinker urged. Everyone should “cleanse our beloved town of this unmerited disgrace”.

As Munby explains, things were not quite as they seemed:

The many who supported Sinker’s self-righteous stance failed, like the vicar, to appreciate that a judicial finding of adultery did not necessarily mean that there had actually been adultery, especially where, as here, there had been a hotel divorce.

But, pending decree absolute, Wedgwood… dared not reveal the truth, lest it provoke the King’s Proctor to intervene [and block the divorce].

The divorce was finalised on 23 June 1919. A day later, Wedgwood wrote a notorious letter to his local newspaper. And the day after that, he married his second wife.

Here are some extracts from Wedgwood’s letter:

My married life was a very happy one, until in 1913 my wife ceased to love me. She is one of those who believe that to live with a man you do not love is prostitution, and we separated. For many years I kept hoping that she would change… It was all useless, and… I at last realised that plans had to be made to reconstruct my life and home…

The Law, which the Church will not allow us politicians to change, insists that a wife shall only be able to divorce her husband if he has been found guilty of desertion and adultery. More merciful than the Church, the Law allows “desertion” to be assumed if a Writ for the Restitution of Conjugal Rights is obtained and not complied with. So “letters” were exchanged, and I was duly found guilty of desertion…

The next stage was to get myself proved guilty of adultery. I chose the simplest way — took a suite of rooms at the Charing Cross Hotel, and took a lady there who was not my wife. As a matter of fact, there was no adultery there. It is not exactly a festive occasion when you are carefully providing evidence to end a happy married life. I cannot imagine what sensible people should expect me to be doing in a sitting-room at a London hotel, except to sleep in.

Wedgwood’s letter created a furore. His niece and biographer, the distinguished historian CV Wedgwood, wrote:

Here was an MP cooly announcing that he had procured a divorce by conspiracy. Questions were asked in parliament. There was talk of a prosecution for perjury. But there had been no perjury; the only evidence taken was that of a hotel chambermaid who had seen two pairs of shoes outside a bedroom door.

Munby asks:

Could Wedgwood have been prosecuted for conspiracy? His letter was appallingly frank as regards his own conduct. But although it is obvious that both parties were guilty of collusion, collusion as such was not necessarily indictable as a crime…

Moreover, Wedgwood was (no doubt deliberately) careful to say nothing to show, for example, that his wife was aware that there had been no adultery.

In reality, says Munby, he was at risk only if it could be shown that he had conspired with his solicitor. And there was no evidence of that.

Wedgwood died in 1943 at the age of 71. He led an interesting life. But that’s another story.