Engines of Truth explores the history of nineteenth-century British trial procedure from the novel viewpoint of efforts to control perjury. Perjury emerged as an acute problem in the Victorian era: new rules allowed many more witnesses to testify, increasing the opportunities for deceit; a broader cultural emphasis on sincerity and truth-telling made the threat seem even greater. Engines of Truth traces the experiments pursued to control witnesses’ truthfulness, from criminal prosecutions and increased reliance on cross-examination, to shame sanctions in British India and inquisitorial invest ... More

Engines of Truth explores the history of nineteenth-century British trial procedure from the novel viewpoint of efforts to control perjury. Perjury emerged as an acute problem in the Victorian era: new rules allowed many more witnesses to testify, increasing the opportunities for deceit; a broader cultural emphasis on sincerity and truth-telling made the threat seem even greater. Engines of Truth traces the experiments pursued to control witnesses’ truthfulness, from criminal prosecutions and increased reliance on cross-examination, to shame sanctions in British India and inquisitorial investigation in the new Divorce Court. Blending legal, social and colonial history, it employs a broad array of sources, including colonial archival material, provincial newspaper coverage, home office records, literary sources, and legislative records. Engines of Truth concludes with a new look at the pivotal 1898 Criminal Evidence Act in Britain, which allowed criminal defendants to testify on oath, placing that Act within the context of a history of sexual scandals that played out in Victorian courtrooms. While many of the experiments it describes failed, the process of innovation this book charts shaped modern trial procedure. Both the United States and the United Kingdom rely heavily on cross-examination as the main test of witness truthfulness, a by-product of this experimentation. In American law, cross-examination is still described as the “greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth;” this book provides a new understanding of the complex process that led to its ascendency.