Report from Select Committee on Acts Respecting Insolvent Debtors

[Bankruptcy]. [Great Britain]. [House of Commons]. Report from Select Committee on Acts Respecting Insolvent Debtors. [London]: Ordered, by The House of Commons, to be Printed, 1819. 216 pp. Folio (13" x 8"; 32.8 x 20.4 cm). Later buckram, black-stamped title to spine, endpapers added. Light toning to interior, very light foxing and soiling to a few pages, internally clean. A very good copy. $150. * Bankruptcy reform was an important (and perennial) topic in British politics, and a number of parliamentary committees were established to examine the issue in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This report concerns the Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors, which was established by an 1813 statute in an attempt to improve conditions for those in debtors' prisons. The conflict between the welfare of prisoners and the rights of their creditors was a frequent topic of these reports, with some concluding that the court was too lenient and others concluding that it was too harsh. Bankruptcy law gradually liberalized until imprisonment for debt was ended for most cases in 1869. Pre-1836 Parliamentary papers are scarce today. They were not available to the public, so they were produced in small numbers.