In mid-eighteenth-century England, the only way for a woman to play a significant part in court was as a defendant, prevented by gender from being judge, lawyer, or juror.

The Welkin
National Theatre, London

In mid-eighteenth-century England, the only way for a woman to play a significant part in court was as a defendant, prevented by gender from being judge, lawyer, or juror. However, a fascinating exception to this masculine judicial exclusivity is dramatised in Lucy Kirkwood’s The Welkin.

Sally Poppy, a young woman already demonised for loose morals, is sentenced to death by a male jury for murder, but pleads a recent pregnancy that, if proved, would commute the sentence to transportation. As the conception-confirming human chorionic gonadotropin hormone would not be detected in urine for another 160 years, the only pregnancy test available is a jury of 12 local women, including a midwife and a woman who has herself borne 21 children. They will decide if Sally is “quick with child”.

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