Adapting to Frontier Conditions: The Administration of the Law in Van Diemen's Land 1803-1824.

From its settlement in 1803 the penal colony of Van Diemen's Land experienced frontier conditions in the working of the law due to its geography, convict population, bushranging, and the British Government's reliance on lay magistrates rather than Judges to dispense justice. This first major transition away from frontier conditions occurred in 1816 with the inception of the Lieutenant-Governor's Court under Deputy Judge Advocate Edward Abbott. This article focuses on the various ways Abbott's court adapted to local conditions when deciding civil cases in a summary way, including avoiding legal formality, allowing married women and convicts to be litigants and sanctioning ex-convicts and married women representing their husbands to appear as agents. The adaptations to local conditions ended in 1824 when the new Supreme Court of Van Diemen's Land began adhering to English court practice in civil and criminal cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]