Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Wigs in English Court

Episode Date: March 6, 2019

What's the deal with the wigs in the English court system? Learn all about it in today's short stuff.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and there's Jerry. Let's get to it.

Why do lawyers wear wigs in Britain? Go. You know, as funny as when I was researching this, it's really funny to me to look at modern pictures of these. And I don't want to make fun of it, but it is funny in 2019 to look at photos of barristers and judges wearing powdered wigs. Just let me say that out loud.

Before, did you just say that out loud? Like you see them outside, there's pictures like smoking a cigarette on their smartphone. Right. Wearing these wigs. Right, playing Candy Crush. Before we get started though, Chuck, I want to differentiate between a barrister

and a solicitor, which I did not know until today, actually, the difference. Yeah, I thought maybe one was like a defense attorney and one was a prosecutor like we have here in the US. That's not the case. A solicitor is like the lawyer that you go meet with outside of court and maybe advises you on family and children matters, or bankruptcy,

or divorce, or something like that. And then they might negotiate contracts, that kind of thing. But then when you're in court, you're represented by a barrister. And the barrister works with the solicitor to understand your case, but it's the barrister who's petitioning the court

on your behalf. So they're both working like for the people. They're not prosecuting somebody, but that's the difference. One of the other differences, at least one of the most obvious and apparent differences between a barrister and a solicitor, is that you don't see solicitors wearing wigs.

You do see barristers wearing wigs. So that's a short stuff within a short stuff. The difference between barristers and solicitors, everybody. That's just an SS, it's so short. So to the wigs, there are a lot of reasons, they're called parukes, that over the years, and we'll get to the whole fashion of the wigs in a minute too, but there are several reasons

why they wore them to begin with and why they still might wear them in certain cases. One of the main reasons is to give it a more formal proceeding, a more solemn proceeding. Another big reason is it's a safeguard, almost like, and I've seen the word disguise used, it's very bad disguise, because it's just the wig. Oh yeah, I hadn't noticed that.

But in criminal court, it supposedly lends to anonymity these robes and wigs, so where if this criminal sees their attorney on the street six months later, you might be like, I don't even recognize a guy, it looks familiar, but if only he had a powdered wig on, I might be able to knife him in the tube. Can't quite place him.

So that is sort of what they represent, and they have been a part of the court system over there, not forever, but since what year? Since 1685 at least. Yeah, previous to that, they didn't use these wigs, which is interesting. It is interesting, because at the time, wigs were already all the rage in Europe,

and had been for a few years, but I guess the court system was like, no, we're going to not take part in this ridiculous fashion trend. And I guess just portraits from the early 1680s even just showed like people without wigs on, and then all of a sudden, bam, wigs start showing up in the portraits,

and they've been there ever since, even long after wigs fell out of fashion. I mean, wigs were only fashionable for less than a hundred years, actually far less than a hundred years, no, about a hundred years, let's say, and then they were gone, and the British court system,

wherever it popped up around the world, hung onto these wigs for another like 200, 300 years. Yeah, and as far as the wigs themselves, you can get a little bit of variety, but it's not like you can walk in there with your rainbow afro wig. John 316. They're generally similar.

Barristers have, you know, it's a little frizzed at the top. They have the horizontal curls on the side and in the back, and in the very, very back, the mullet section, you have these two long strips below the hairline with a little looped curl. The judges themselves have the much more ornate wigs that's more full.

Very long. Yeah, super long. These are the ones, you know, that's how you can tell the difference when you see the dude with the big, huge, full long wig that's a judge, when you see the little one sitting on top, standing outside the courthouse

with your smartphone and your cigarette, that's a barrister. And the judges wig looks very, very much like a 70s rocker hairdo. If you step back and look at it. Yeah. Like really. I'm trying to think of who.

Like maybe like a tour manager for Led Zeppelin or something like that. All right, maybe. Although he famously did not have long hair, but sure. Who, Phil Graham? He was bald on top. Was that his name? He was the promoter.

Oh, okay. Phil Graham was. All right, well. Man, he used to stick people up. He would say like, if you don't give us an extra $100,000, my boys aren't going on stage like five minutes before they're supposed to go on stage.

He was pretty legendary. Piece of work. So as far as the wigs though, they're expensive. Judges can throw down about three grand on a wig. The barristers may spend anywhere from 500 to 1,000. These are dollars, not pounds. Yeah, yeah. And they're made of horse hair.

Traditionally have always been made of horse hair if you can afford it. Just because of tradition, it's not like horse hair is some super valuable thing. But some have been made through other things like goats, hair or just cotton or maybe a dead human. Or even a live human.

Oh, sure. At the time back in the day, humans would donate their long white hair kind of like locks of love. But rather than, you know, for people who have survived cancer, it's for the courts. Locks of law.

And rather than for love, it's for money. So it doesn't really bear that much of a resemblance, although hair was involved. But the horse hair, it's like you said, it's not prize. It's just tradition. That's what they were made out of originally. And that's what they continue to be made out of. But that's not to say they're just like thrown together.

These are remarkably well made where they're supposed to be for a very long time. They were very well made artisan crafted wigs. All right, let's take a break. We're gonna come back and talk a little bit more about the history of these wigs and why on earth they're still wearing them right after this.

Game of Thrones On the podcast, Pay Dude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor. Stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point. But we are going to unpack and dive back

into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal?

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or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right. So the history of wigs here, it may surprise you to know that a big reason these wigs started to be worn is because syphilis was rampant. Yeah. It seems like everybody had syphilis. Yeah. And one of the things that could happen when you have syphilis,

aside from blindness and rashes and dementia and open sores, is you can lose your hair. So maybe unfairly because male pattern baldness is a thing anyway. If you lost your hair and you were a prominent person, a lot of people probably looked at you and said, oh, well, he got syphilis. Yeah. Plus at the time, long hair on men was very much in fashion. Sure. And that does not go well with syphilis if you're balding.

So wigs came into play and they might not have come into play as strongly as they did had it not been for Louis XIV, the king of France, the Sun King, who they believe had syphilis. And he started wearing wigs himself. He reigned from 1643 to 1715 and he was a huge trendsetter. So when he started wearing these powdered wigs, everybody started wearing powdered wigs, and not just in France and not just among his court, but in courts and the aristocracy and the upper classes of all of Europe, including in England, which was reigned by Charles II at the time, who was the cousin of Louis XIV.

And also maybe he had syphilis. Yeah, syphilis everywhere. You get syphilis. You get syphilis. You get syphilis. And like you said, it spread through all of aristocracy. Finally, it fell out of fashion over time that, like you said, didn't... Syphilis.

Well, yeah, didn't take that long for the wigs to fall out of fashion. Would you say less than 100 years? Yeah, by the time King George III, who was presiding over England during the American Revolution, when he was in charge, it was really just basically coachmen, bishops, and I believe the court. And in the 1830s, the church or the Anglican church said, bishops don't need to wear those anymore. I don't know when coachmen stopped wearing them.

But then... You're probably like, we're with the bishops. Right. And then the courts, they just kept it up from that point on. Yeah. So finally, in 2007, there was a court challenge, an actual suit brought forward to say, can we not wear these wigs anymore? And there was a ruling that said that technically did away with barrister wigs, but not entirely because that was only in civil court or appearing before the Supreme Court.

But in criminal cases, they were like, keep those wigs on, everybody. And I believe they still do, right? Yeah, that's what I couldn't quite figure out. Like I read, like in this article, it says until 2011, when the practice was discontinued. Well, that was with judges. Oh, okay. All right. That makes more sense now.

Barristers in 2007, judges in 2011. But I believe that in criminal cases, both barristers and judges are still required to wear wigs or else it's a real affront to the decorum of the court. Yeah. Like I was reading articles from last year that talked about the fact that they were still trying to get it not mandatory for criminal cases, but I think they are still wearing them. And it had a sweeping effect. Like everyone around the world that had, that worked in the legal system of a country that

was a former British colony, whether in Africa, whether Australia, whether Canada, or just waiting, actually, I think Canada did away with them before, but it's like they were just waiting to pull these wigs off. Jamaica got rid of theirs in 2013. Australia got rid of theirs finally in 2010. So whatever lawsuit that was in 2007, that had sweet, like literally global effects. Yeah. I mean, one of the articles I read talked about in England, the heat.

They're like in the summer time, yeah. In the summer time, these robes and these wigs, they were like, it's just like, it's a problem. And they should just file a petition or whatever that just says, to whom it may concern, come on, this is ridiculous. It's 2019, the end. Right. Yeah. We look silly.

Yeah. Although in Hong Kong, they are still with it 100% from what I understand. Yeah. So if you want to go see your lawyers and your judges wearing traditional wigs, go to Hong Kong. I think that's the upshot of this short stuff. Yeah. Go commit a crime in Hong Kong.

There you go. Thanks a lot for joining us. If you want to get in touch with us, shoot us an email. Why don't you send it off to stuffpodcast.howstuffworks.com.