In law, the Golden rule, or British rule, is a form of statutory construction traditionally applied by English courts. The other two are the “plain meaning rule” (also known as the “literal rule”) and the “mischief rule.”

The golden rule allows a judge to depart from a word's normal meaning in order to avoid an absurd result.

The term "golden rule" seems to have originated in an 1854 court ruling,^[1] and implies a degree of enthusiasm for this particular rule of construction over alternative rules that has not been shared by all subsequent judges. For example, one judge made a point of including this note in a 1940 decision: "The golden rule is that the words of a statute must prima facie be given their ordinary meaning."^[2]

Circumstances of use[link]

Although it points to a kind of middle ground between the plain meaning (or literal) rule and the mischief rule, the golden rule is not, in a strict sense, a compromise between them. Like the plain meaning rule, the golden rule gives the words of a statute their plain, ordinary meaning. However, when this may lead to an irrational result that is unlikely to be the legislature's intention, the golden rule dictates that a judge can depart from this meaning. In the case of homographs, where a word can have more than one meaning, the judge can choose the preferred meaning; if the word only has one meaning, but applying this would lead to a bad decision, the judge can apply a completely different meaning.

History and evolution[link]

The rule is usually based on part of Becke v Smith (1836) 2 M&W 195 per Justice Parke (later Lord Wensleydale), which states:

It is a very useful rule in the construction of a statute to adhere to the ordinary meaning of the words used, and to the grammatical construction, unless that is at variance with the intention of the legislature to be collected from the statute itself, or leads to any manifest absurdity or repugnance, in which case the language may be varied or modified so as to avoid such inconvenience but no further.

Twenty years later, Lord Wensleydale restated the rule in different words in Grey v. Pearson (1857) 6 HL Cas 61, 106; 10ER 1216, 1234. He wrote:

[I]n construing (sic) statutes, and all written instruments, the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words is to be adhered to, unless that would lead to some absurdity or inconsistency with the rest of the instrument, in which case the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words may be modified, so as to avoid that absurdity or inconsistency, but not farther.

With time, the rule continues to become more refined and therefore to be a more precise and effective tool for the courts. More than a century after Grey v. Pearson, a court added this caveat: "Nowadays we should add to 'natural and ordinary meaning' the words 'in their context and according to the appropriate linguistic register' ".^[3]

Worked examples[link]

This rule may be used in two ways. It is applied most frequently in a narrow sense where there is some ambiguity or absurdity in the words themselves.

For example, imagine there may be a sign saying "Do not use lifts in case of fire." Under the literal interpretation of this sign, people must never use the lifts, in case there is a fire. However, this would be an absurd result, as the intention of the person who made the sign is obviously to prevent people from using the lifts only if there is currently a fire nearby.

The second use of the golden rule is in a wider sense, to avoid a result that is obnoxious to principles of public policy, even where words have only one meaning.

The rule was applied in this second sense in In Sigsworth, Re, Bedford v Bedford (1935; Ch 89), where the court applied the rule to section 46 of the Administration of Estates Act 1925. This statute required that the court should "issue" someone's inheritance in certain circumstances. The court held that no one should profit from a crime, and so used the golden rule to prevent an undesirable result, even though there was only one meaning of the word "issue". A son murdered his mother and then committed suicide. The courts were required to rule on who then inherited the estate: the mother's family, or the son's descendants. There was never a question of the son profiting from his crime, but as the outcome would have been binding on lower courts in the future, the court found in favour of the mother's family.

See also[link]

• Heydon's case
• Pepper v. Hart [1993] AC 573

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Thomas Arne painted by Johann Zoffany

Thomas Augustine Arne (12 March 1710, London – 5 March 1778, London) was a British composer, best known for the patriotic song Rule, Britannia!. He also wrote a version of God Save the King, which was to become the British national anthem, and the song A-Hunting We Will Go. Arne was the leading British theatre composer of the eighteenth century working at Drury Lane and Covent Garden.

Early life[link]

Arne's father and grandfather were both upholsterers and both became officials of the City Company of Upholsterers. His grandfather fell upon hard times and died in the Marshalsea Prison for debtors. Arne's father earned enough money not only to rent a large house in Covent Garden but also to have Arne educated at Eton College. But later in life, he also managed to lose most of his wealth and had to earn extra cash by acting as a numberer of the boxes at Drury Lane Theatre.

Arne was so keen on music that he smuggled a spinet into his room and, damping the sounds with his handkerchief, would secretly practise during the night while the rest of the family slept. He also dressed up as a liveryman in order to gain access to the gallery of the Italian Opera. It was at the opera that Arne first met the musician and composer Michael Festing, who was a major influence on him. Festing not only taught him to play the violin, but also took him to various musical events, including going to hear Thomas Roseingrave compete for the post of organist at Hanover Square, and a visit to Oxford in 1733 to hear George Frideric Handel's oratorio Athalia.

Upon leaving school, Arne was articled to a solicitor for three years. However, Arne's father discovered his son leading a group of musicians at what was probably one of Festing's musical gatherings. Following this disclosure of his son's real interest and talent, he was persuaded (again probably by Festing) to allow the young Arne to give up his legal career and to pursue music as a living.

He was baptised in the Roman Catholic faith, his mother's religion.^[1]

Musical career[link]

Thomas Augustine Arne

Arne's sister, Susannah Maria Arne, was a famous contralto, who performed in some of his works, including his first opera, Rosamund. (She would later become known professionally as "Mrs Cibber".) They and their brother Richard would often perform Arne's works together. Between 1733 and 1776, Arne wrote music for about 90 stage works, including plays, masques, pantomimes, and opera. Many of his dramatic scores are now lost, probably in the disastrous fire at Covent Garden in 1808.^[2]

Arne was a Freemason^[3] and active in the organisation, which has long been centred around the Covent Garden area of London, of which Arne was a native.

Arne's Catholicism meant that he never composed music for the Church of England, unlike most other great English composers of his time.^[1]

On 15 March 1737 [1], Arne married singer Cecilia Young, whose sister, Isabella was the wife of John Frederick Lampe. Arne's operas and masques became very popular, and he received the patronage of Frederick, Prince of Wales, at whose country home, Cliveden, the Masque of Alfred, featuring "Rule Britannia", was debuted.

In 1741, Arne filed a complaint in Chancery pertaining to a breach of musical copyright and claimed that some of his theatrical songs had been printed and sold by Henry Roberts and John Johnson, the London booksellers and music distributors. The matter was settled out of court. Arne was certainly one of the very first composers to have appealed to the law over copyright issues.^[4]

In 1750, after an argument with David Garrick, Susannah left Drury Lane for Covent Garden Theatre, and Thomas followed. In 1755 during a period spent in Dublin, he separated from Cecilia, who, he alleged, was mentally ill. He began a relationship with one of his pupils, Charlotte Brent, a soprano and former child prodigy. Brent performed in several of Arne's works, including the role of Sally in his 1760 opera Thomas and Sally and Mandane in his 1762 opera Artaxerxes. Eventually Brent and Arne went their separate ways and she married a violinist Thomas Pinto in 1766.

During the 1760s Arne frequently collaborated with the Irish writer Isaac Bickerstaff. Thomas and Sally was the first English comic opera to be sung throughout (it contained no dialogue).^[2] Artaxerxes was one of the most successful and influential English operas of the eighteenth century and is the only known attempt to write an Italianate, Metastasian opera seria, in the English language.^[5] It was frequently performed in London into the 1830s.^[6] On 1791 visit to London Joseph Haydn was impressed by a performance of Artaxerxes he attended and admitted that he had no idea such an opera existed in the English-language.^[7]

In 1769 Arne composed the song Soft Flowing Avon, with lyrics by David Garrick, for the Shakespeare Jubilee held by Garrick in Stratford-upon-Avon to commemorate the life of William Shakespeare.

In 1777, shortly before his death, Arne and his wife were reconciled. They had one son, Michael Arne who was also a composer. Arne is buried at St Paul's, Covent Garden, London.

See also[link]

• List of compositions by Thomas Arne

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• McVeigh, Simon. Concert Life in London from Mozart to Haydn. Cambridge University Press, 1993 (2006 reprint).

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Thomas Augustine Arne

• Family History Page by a descendant of Arne
• Thomas Augustine Arne on the Classical Composers Database
• Works by Thomas Arne in the University of North Texas Virtual Rare Book Room
• Profile page for Thomas Arne on the Find A Grave web site

Sheet music[link]

• Free scores by Thomas Augustine Arne in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Free scores by Thomas Arne at the International Music Score Library Project
• The Mutopia Project has compositions by Thomas Arne
• Free scores by Thomas Arne in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)