Australasian Legal History Libraries

Our Google Alert has turned up what may well be a familiar source for our readers, but we’re posting it anyway in case it is not.  Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) is maintaining Australasian Legal History Libraries, which “aim to make searchable as many resources concerning Australasian legal history as AustLII is able to assemble.”  The three libraries are Australasian Colonial Legal History Library (pre-1901); Australian Federation Law Library (1901-1950); and Australasian Modern Legal History Library (1951-2000).  The first includes some New Zealand materials.

Seven from Dorsett on NZ and Australian Legal History

Shaunnagh Dorsett, University of Technology Sydney, Faculty of Law, has posted seven recent papers from her backlist on SSRN.

BHC Doctoral Colloquium in Business History

[We have the following announcement.] The BHC Doctoral Colloquium in Business History willbe held once again in conjunction with the 2018 BHC annual meeting. This prestigious workshop, funded by Cambridge University Press, will take place in Baltimore on Wednesday April 4th and Thursday April 5th. Typically limited to ten students, the colloquium is open to doctoral candidates who are pursuing dissertation research within the broad field of business history, from any relevant discipline (e.g., from economic sociology, political science, cultural anthropology, or management, as well as history). Most participants are in year 3 or 4 or their degree program, though in some instances applicants at a later stage make a compelling case that their thesis research has evolved in ways that suggest the value of an intensive engagement with business history.

Topics (see link for past examples) may range from the early modern era to the present, and explore societies across the globe. Participants work intensively with a distinguished group of BHC-affiliated scholars (including the incoming BHC president), discussing dissertation proposals, relevant literatures and research strategies, and career trajectories.

Applications are due by 15 November 2017 via email to BHC@Hagley.org and should include: a statement of interest; CV; preliminary or final dissertation prospectus (10-15 pages); and a letter of support from your dissertation supervisor (or prospective supervisor). All participants receive a stipend that partially defrays travel costs to the annual meeting. Applicants will receive notification of the selection committee’s decisions by 20 December 2017.

Questions about the colloquium should be sent to its director, Duke Professor of History Edward Balleisen, eballeis@duke.edu, and/or this year’s graduate student liaison, Alexi Garrett, asg4c@virginia.edu (who participated last year).

Goold on Owning Body Parts

Imogen Goold, St Anne’s College Oxford has published Flesh and Blood: Owning our Bodies and Their Parts with Hart Publishing. The book is in part historical in its approach. From the press:

For centuries, human bodies and their parts have been used for scientific and medical research, as a source of transplant organs and even for the creation of artistic works. Human tissue is taken, tested and stored during forensic investigations and stored in databases across the country. We can examine the DNA in almost any cell of the body to yield personal information, while increasingly tissue's importance for research and the production of treatments has seen it become an item of commerce. Tissue is both object and information, laden with psychological, cultural and emotional significance while also being a tool that is used daily in medicine, criminal investigations and research. Its use presents complex challenges for legal regulation. As a result common law legal systems have so far struggled to produce a coherent, principled approach to regulating the use of human body parts. Drawing on the fields of ethics, law and history, the author develops an interdisciplinary and holistic account of the challenges arising from human tissue use and the options for regulation. Part one of the book contextualizes the difficult issues surrounding the use of human tissue by presenting an historical account of how we have dealt with bodies and their parts since ancient times. Part two provides a detailed examination of the law covering tissue use in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. Part three explores the range of regulatory mechanisms that might be applied to human tissue, focusing on the notion of property at common law. The book concludes by analysing how property principles might be applied to human tissue and argues for why they should be.

Further information is available here. 

Prest and friends on Blackstone's Commentaries

Now out with Hart is a collection edited by Wilfred Prest, University of Adelaide: Re-Interpreting Blackstone’s Commentaries: A Seminal Text in National and International Contexts. From the press:

This collection explores the remarkable impact and continuing influence of William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, from the work's original publication in the 1760s down to the present. Contributions by cultural and literary scholars, and intellectual and legal historians trace the manner in which this truly seminal text has established its authority well beyond the author's native shores or his own limited lifespan. 

In the first section, 'Words and Visions', Kathryn Temple, Simon Stern, Cristina S Martinez and Michael Meehan discuss the Commentaries' aesthetic and literary qualities as factors contributing to the work's unique status in Anglo-American legal culture. 

The second group of essays traces the nature and dimensions of Blackstone's impact in various jurisdictions outside England, namely Quebec (Michel Morin), Louisiana and the United States more generally (John W Cairns and Stephen M Sheppard), North Carolina (John V Orth) and Australasia (Wilfrid Prest). Finally Horst Dippel, Paul Halliday and Ruth Paley examine aspects of Blackstone's influential constitutional and political ideas, while Jessie Allen concludes the volume with a personal account of 'Reading Blackstone in the Twenty-First Century and the Twenty-First Century through Blackstone'. 

This volume is a sequel to the well-received collection Blackstone and his Commentaries: Biography, Law, History (Hart Publishing, 2009).

Here’s the line-up:

·     I WORDS AND VISIONS
1 Blackstone's 'Stutter': the (Anti)Performance of the Commentaries
Kathryn Temple
William Blackstone: Courtroom Dramatist?
Simon Stern
2 Blackstone as Draughtsman: Picturing the Law
Cristina S Martinez
3 Blackstone's Commentaries: England's Legal Georgic?
Michael Meehan

II BEYOND ENGLAND
4 Blackstone in the Bayous: Inscribing Slavery in the Louisiana Digest of 1808
John W Cairns
Legal Jambalaya
Stephen M Sheppard
5 Blackstone and the Birth of Quebec's Distinct Legal Culture 1765–1867
Michel Morin
6 Blackstone's Ghost: Law and Legal Education in North Carolina
John V Orth
7 Antipodean Blackstone 
Wilfrid Prest

III LAW AND POLITICS
8 Blackstone's King
Paul D Halliday
Modern Blackstone: the King's Two Bodies, the Supreme Court and the President
Ruth Paley
9 Blackstone's Commentaries and the Origins of Modern Constitutionalism
Horst Dippel
10 Reading Blackstone in the Twenty-First Century and theTwenty-First Century through Blackstone
Jessie Allen

You can read more about the book here.

Hancock on Australian barrister Tom Hughes

Historian and biographer Ian Hancock published Tom Hughes QC: A Cab on the Rank with The Federation Press in 2016. From the publisher:

For more than thirty years, Tom Hughes, a scion of a notable Sydney family of high achievers, was one of Australia’s top barristers, renowned, respected and sometimes feared for his dominating presence in the courtroom. Equally at home in all jurisdictions, his theatrical style, command of language and forensic skills filled public galleries, exposed witnesses, persuaded juries and ensured that judges paid attention. An icon of the Sydney and Australian Bar, he appeared in a raft of celebrated cases, became the subject of many media profiles and was, from the 1970s to the 1990s, the country’s most expensive advocate. 

Hughes has also been a wartime pilot, a politician, an activist federal Attorney-General, a grazier, and a racehorse owner. He survived a broken marriage, a spiteful sacking from ministerial office and a prolonged though not permanent loss of an inherited Catholic faith. He endured years of frustration before finding the right partner to replicate the perfect marriage of his beloved parents. Even in dark times, however, a thorough professional and a prodigious worker, Hughes remained focused on his first love, the law, always upholding its traditions and processes. 

In addition to published material, the book draws on a huge trove of personal records, including fee books, intimate diaries, autobiographical jottings and private correspondence, supplemented by interviews with Hughes, his family, friends and colleagues. Using these sources, the book provides insights into a many-sided character - telling the story of how Hughes and his immediate forebears embraced more of their English than their Irish heritage while becoming distinctively Australian. It also offers a personal perspective on several decades of Australian political, social and legal history.

Praise for the book:

"The subtitle of this compellingly readable biography of Thomas Eyre Forrest Hughes AO QC borrows the underlying philosophical metaphor of the independent Bar. A barrister is available for hire by those who will pay the fee, irrespective of personal, political, social, or other co- incidence with the client, or approval or disapproval of his or her cause. Hughes’s advocacy style has been described as declamatory and theatrical, a characteristic pose was, with ‘menacing pirouette’, to address the side, or even the rear of the courtroom. Occasionally there would be penetrating wit, as when he said of a trade union hearing which had expelled his client that to describe it as a kangaroo court ‘would be an understatement and an insult to a great Australian marsupial.'” –Peter Heerey

“Crime, defamation, constitutional issues, commercial litigation, inquiries - for 60 years Tom Hughes was there, a big man with a big capacity for the big cases. … He has attained almost legendary status as being perhaps the last of his kind. The case for reading his biography is substantial on these grounds alone, and reinforced because Hughes' story comprises many other fascinating narratives.” –Kate Allman

“Most Sydney lawyers have a repertoire of Tom Hughes stories. He became a legend in his lifetime, and was still practising as a barrister well into his 80s. His trademark was a rare ability to persuade and intimidate: judges, juries, witnesses, legal opponents, clients, colleagues, all. Instructing solicitors were fair game, yet it was always an honour to work with Hughes. For more than 50 years he was a commanding presence in Australian and English courts. And as Ian Hancock demonstrates in this excellent biography, he has lived a life of multifaceted eminence.” –Roy Williams

Further information about the book, including interviews and other media coverage, is available here.

Hutchinson on "great cases" and their stories

Allan C. Hutchinson, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University published Is Killing People Right? More Great Cases that Shaped the Legal World with Cambridge University Press in 2016. From the publisher:

"Great cases" are those judicial decisions around which the common law pivots. In a sequel to the instant classic Is Eating People Wrong?, this book presents eight new great cases from the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. Written in a highly accessible yet rigorous style, it explores the social circumstances, institutions (lawyers, judges and courts) and ordinary people whose stories shaped the law. Across the courts' diverse and uncoordinated attempts to adapt to changing conditions and shifting demands, it shows the law as the living, breathing and down-the-street experience it really is. Including seminal cases in end of life, abortion and equal rights, this is an ideal introduction for students to legal history and jurisprudence.

Here's the Table of Contents:

1. Introduction: on the road (again)

2. Is killing people right? Law and the end of life

3. Oil on troubled waters: the consequences of civil liability

4. The politics of law: cats, pigeons and old chestnuts

5. The companies we keep: the moralities of business

6. Fifty shades of Brown: consent and the criminal law

7. Putting up a defence: sex, murder and videotapes

8. Wade-ing into controversy: a case of accidental activism

9. Playing a different tune: fairness in deal-making

10. Conclusion: surfing the tides.

Further information is available here.

Bennett's latest Australian judicial biography

Federation Press has published Sir Frederick Darley: Sixth Chief Justice of New South Wales 1886-1910 by John Michael Bennett, AM. This is the fifteenth volume in Bennett’s series on judicial lives, a project he began as Senior Research Fellow in Law at the Australian National University four decades ago. From the press:

J M Bennett’s Sir Frederick Darley, the new biography in his acclaimed "Lives of the Australian Chief Justices" series, describes in fascinating detail one of the most extraordinary episodes in Australian judicial history. In November 1886, the circumstances being unprecedented, New South Wales had three successive Chief Justices. 

On 4 November Sir James Martin died in office. Attorney-General Want, pressing a false claim to the vacancy, nevertheless declined it. The salary was too low. The great orator W B Dalley, QC, also rejected the position. His health was failing. F M Darley, QC, was immediately approached, but having a large family to support, he also declined. The government turned to Julian Salomons, QC, who accepted and was gazetted. Almost immediately, without taking his seat, he resigned for the extraordinary reasons disclosed in Dr Bennett’s fascinating chapter on the “Phantom Chief Justice”. A perplexed government urged Darley’s reconsideration. He did so reluctantly, serving from 29 November at great financial sacrifice. As the Hon Keith Mason, AC, QC, notes in his insightful foreword, Darley’s reluctance to serve was ultimately “matched only by his reluctance to relinquish the role over 20 years later”. 

Richly detailed chapters trace Darley’s progression from birth and education in Ireland to Bar practice there at a time when too many lawyers competed for too little work. Darley migrated to Sydney, succeeding beyond his wildest hopes to build a preeminent practice, command a fortune and become a Legislative Councillor. 

Always regarding Australia as his “adopted country”, he retained his “Irishness” to the end. With characteristic care and precision, the author reviews Darley’s judicial career, his distinguished presidency over the Supreme Court in difficult years, and his work administering the colony on many occasions as Lieutenant-Governor. 

Darley might well have retired in 1902 when he accepted a place on the English Royal Commission inquiring into the poor military performance in the Boer War. But despite illness, and resistance to social and industrial change, he persevered on the bench until his death in 1910.

Praise for the book:

“Frederick Darley was a prominent barrister, influential Legislative Councillor, Chief Justice of New South Wales, and Lieutenant-Governor. Darley's career has largely been overlooked and underestimated until this exceptional work by the esteemed author and legal historian Dr Bennett…In this book, Dr Bennett gives us a rare insight into the toll and sacrifice of judicial office. Further, in recounting Darley's work in protecting the authority of the Court itself as an institution, he gives us a unique perspective of the friction and tension that arises between the judicial arm of government and the Executive, as well as between the court and the media.”  -Basem Seif

“Darley became such a successful “economic immigrant” that he was reluctant to sacrifice his large earnings as a barrister for the salary of Chief Justice. (The book contains a cartoon from Bulletin showing Darley about to enter the court, carrying a huge bag labelled “Income 7000 pounds per year”, being met by an attendant who warns him “If you go in there you’ll have to leave at least half of that bundle behind”.) But eventually, after several of his colleagues declined the offer, he was persuaded to accept. He was to prove just
as reluctant to give up the office in the early twentieth century….This book is a worthy addition to J M Bennett’s extraordinary collection of judicial portraits.” –Graham Fricke

Full information is available here.

Legal History Turns from Schultz and friends

Here is another Commonwealth title we missed from The Federation Press in 2015: a volume edited by Griffith University's Karen Schultz, Legal History Turns. From the publisher:

This volume concerns legal history turns – that is, new directions or volte-faces  in legal history and its interdisciplinarity. Legal history turns include deviations from historically-situated interpretations and practices in law and legal scholarship. The papers in this volume grew from the Griffith Law School’s Legal History Seminar Series, a public lecture initiative intended to contribute to the interest in legal history of the profession, judiciary, academe, and the public. Written by a cast that includes authors with internationally-impressive legal history credentials, this collection illustrates legal history turns’ dynamism and diversity, and is introduced with a foreword by The Honourable Justice Susan Kiefel AC.

Table of Contents after the jump.

Preston on Australian military law

We're catching up on a few titles published in Commonwealth countries back in 2015. Here's the first—from Federation Press, Military Law in Colonial Australia by Neil Preston, OAM. From the publisher:

This book breaks new ground in reviewing the naval and military law of the Australian colonies before their federation in 1901. Its particular focus is on the disciplinary codes contained in Acts of Parliament and subordinate legislation. A disciplinary code takes a certain form having regard to the nature of the force to which it is to apply, which in turn depends on the circumstances in which the force is raised and its proposed role.

Matters dealt with include:

• an examination of the colonies’ many disciplinary codes and a discussion of their adequacy.

• the political development of the colonies to the stage where they were prepared to raise local forces.

• the development of the British part-time forces and the British naval and military disciplinary codes, because the colonies looked to Britain for precedents for the kinds of forces they might raise and the disciplinary codes they might provide.

• the various kinds of naval and military forces that the colonies experimented with.

• the colonies’ responses to the withdrawal of British regular army troops in the period 1860-70.

• the colonies’ responses to the reports of senior British officers sent to the colonies to advise on defence matters, including the colonial forces.

• the naval and military law applying to colonial forces serving in the Sudan, the Boer War and the Boxer rebellion in China.

Table of Contents after the jump.