Topic Page: Blackstone, William, 1723-1780
English jurist who wrote to defend the common law of England as a natural and coherent system, and published his Commentaries on the Laws of England 1765–70. A barrister from 1746, he became the first professor of English Law at Oxford 1758, and a justice of the Court of Common Pleas 1770. Knighted 1770.
quotations
Blackstone, William
1723–80, English jurist. At first unsuccessful in legal practice, he turned to scholarship and teaching. He became (1758) the first Vinerian professor of law at Oxford, where he inaugurated courses in English law. British universities had previously confined themselves to the study of Roman law. Blackstone published his lectures as Commentaries on the Laws of England (4 vol., 1765–69), a work that reduced to order and lucidity the formless bulk of English law. It ranks with the achievements of Sir Edward Coke and Sir Matthew Hale, Blackstone's great predecessors. Blackstone's Commentaries, written in an urbane, dignified, and clear style, is regarded as the most thorough treatment of the whole of English law ever produced by one man. It demonstrated that English law as a system of justice was comparable to Roman law and the civil law of the Continent. Blackstone has been criticized, notably by Jeremy Bentham, for a complacent belief that, in the main, English law was beyond improvement and for his failure to analyze exactly the social and historical factors underlying legal systems. Blackstone's book exerted tremendous influence on the legal profession and on the teaching of law in England and in the United States. In his later life Blackstone resumed practice, served in Parliament, was solicitor general to the queen, and was a judge of the Court of Common Pleas.
- See The Sovereignty of the Law, selections from Blackstone's Commentaries, ed. and with an introd. by Jones, G. (1973);.
- biography by O. A. Lockmiller (1938);.
- , A Comment on the Commentaries (ed. by C. W. Everett, 1928);.
- , Essays in the Margin of Blackstone's Commentaries (1962).
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