Blackstone's Tower: The English Law School - College of Social ...

1. Law in Culture and Society
INTRODUCTION
Soon after I had decided to embark on a career as a jurist, I asked
one of my mentors, Professor Harry Lawson, for some suggestions
for systematic reading over one long vacation. "Start with Blackstone's
Commentaries", he advised. 1 I failed at the first attempt and
I only read through the whole work many years later.
Nevertheless the advice was sound and Blackstone provides an
obvious starting-point for exploring the world of the English law
school. He was the first great modern English academic lawyer, 2
the first holder of the Vinerian Chair at Oxford (1758), and he tried
to establish the study of English Law as a university subject. In this,
he was unsuccessful in the short run. His lectures were wellreceived,
but he failed to persuade the University of Oxford to
establish a law school devoted to the study of English Law. Blackstone's
Commentaries became an immediate best-seller, with eight
editions published in his lifetime. They purported to systematise
the unsystematic by presenting an elegant, readable, comprehensive
map of English law as a whole. They soon established themselves
as one of the canon of texts for educated English gentlemen—a
part of the general culture of the nobility and landed
classes. They also became the principal conduit for the spread of
common law. Colonists wish to carry their law with them, but they
travel light. Blackstone could fit into the luggage of frontiersmen,
settlers and colonial lawyers in America and Australia more easily
than the bulky, unsystematic reports of cases that were the blood of
the common law. And the Commentaries could be used to uphold
individual rights against the colonial government. As Frederic William
Maitland observed: "The Tory lawyer little thought that he
was giving law to colonies that were on the eve of a great and
successful rebellion". 3
Blackstone also provided the target for the first major attack on
the common law tradition. Jeremy Bentham heard Blackstone's lec-
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