Why British Judges Wear Wigs

A judge's wig

The absurdity of English judicial attire has been a matter of note for quite some time. That most stylish of Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, said that English judges looked to him "like mice peeping out of oakum." Jefferson was not much of an Anglophile.

A few decades later, another budding revolutionary, Alexander Herzen, described the English judges as "wearing a fur coat and something like a woman's dressing gown."

English judicial attire in its present form dates from about 1660, the time of the Restoration of the English monarchy. Upon the return of Charles II from France, the fashion of the Court of Louis XIV for powdered wigs became de rigeur for the smart members of English society. Since England had just emerged from a bloody civil war between those who wore their hair short (the "Roundheads") and those who wore their hair long (the "Beatles"), the pervasive use of wigs was an obvious way to cover over the divisions in society (as well as the occasional bald spot).

The judicial robe and barrister's gown developed much earlier. By the time of Edward III (1327-77), the fur and silk-lined robes were well established as a mark of high judicial office. Judicial costume changed with the seasons, generally green in the summer and violet in the winter, with red reserved for special occasions. The plain black gown was adopted by most barristers in 1685 when the bar went into mourning at the death of King Charles II. They have apparently never gotten over it.

English judge in his full regalia

Until the nineteenth century, the wig was not considered a particularly legal headgear. The distinctive medieval legal headdress was the coif, a piece of white linen which seems originally to have been designed to cover the tonsure of monks who were acting in a legal capacity.

By the late sixteenth century, however, all members of the legal profession wore round black skullcaps to court, with the white edges of the coif sticking out underneath. When wigs were introduced, judicial wigs had a small version of the skullcap and coif sewn into them. Law students, not yet entitled to wear wigs, continued to wear the legal skullcap for some time after the introduction of wigs, but by the early eighteenth century, it had disappeared completely. Much writing in this area tends to confuse the legal skullcap with the coif.

In short, English judges and barristers began wearing wigs and robes because everybody in polite society was wearing wigs and robes in those days. They continue to wear them because nobody has ever told them to stop. Wigs are expensive, and English judges get a stipend to cover the cost of their wigs and robes. Barristers, on the other hand, must buy their own, and there is a thriving market in used wigs. It is not clear, however, that used wigs are cheaper than new ones. Tradition being what it is in Great Britain, wigs that have previously been worn by great jurists and lions of the bar acquire a certain cachet that makes them highly sought after. Of course, such pre-owned wigs may also acquire some other, less-attractive attributes, like a yellowish color or off-putting aroma. It is also not unheard of for wigs to be stolen and resold on the black market. As one barrister put it, "The courts are full of criminals."

In April 1992, there was much speculation that English judges might finally stop wearing all their ridiculous paraphernalia and slip into something a little more comfortable.

A Supreme Court judge adjusts his wig
 as judges line up to attend a ceremony

The judges of the commercial court, the division of the High Court that deals with commercial litigation, were scheduled to vote on a recommendation that the wearing of wigs be abolished in commercial court proceedings. The new lord chief justice, Justice Taylor of Gosforth, was also on record as being strongly anti-wig.

It didn't happen. The commercial court judges voted not to abandon their wigs, but instead to place the whole matter before all 55 judges of the Queen's Bench Division for continued consideration and de 1000 bate. Interviewed the following day, the clerk to the chief judge of the Commercial Court stated, "I think they felt it was too big an issue for them to sit in splendid isolation."

Sitting in "splendid isolation," each judge frequently decides cases involving the most complex business affairs and the disposition of many millions of pounds sterling. Yet whether or not to take off their wigs in public was "too big an issue" for them to decide alone. Clearly, the judicial wig was directly connected to something deep within the English judge's psyche.

One of the most prominent reasons for retaining traditional judicial garb was that it imbued in laypersons a sense of the solemnity and dignity of the law. This was seen as a particularly important function in connection with criminal defendants who tend, as a group, to be underappreciative of the law's dignity and solemnity. On a more practical note, a second major justification was that the wig and robe served to disguise the appearance of judges to a considerable degree, making it difficult for criminal defendants and other litigants to identify them outside the courtroom context.

*This article is adapted from Professor Yablon's article"Judicial Drag: An Essay on Wigs, Robes and Legal Change", published in 1995 in the Wisconsin Law Review.