Civil Law

The Chair of Civil Law was founded in 1710, the second in the Faculty of Law following the creation of the Regius Professorship of Public Law in 1707.

Foundation of the Chair

Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries no legal training had been available at Scottish universities, and prospective lawyers had been obliged to study abroad, generally in the Netherlands. By the turn of the 18th century, there were growing calls to reduce the cost of a legal education by providing training at home. A number of Advocates now began to give private lessons on the Civil Law and Scots Law and one of these, James Craig (1672-1732) was elected as the first holder of Edinburgh University's Chair of Civil Law in 1710. The University's Law Faculty had been somewhat controversially founded the previous year, with the creation of a Chair of Public Law. Opposed by the Town Council, this position had seen by many as the creation of a sinecure for the politically well-connected Charles Erskine (1680-1763), who does not appear to have taught his subject. The Chair of Civil Law, conversely, was a creation of the Town Council and was seen to meet a pressing need. Initially, however, unlike the exceptionally well-endowed Chair of Public Law, it was unsalaried. Only in 1716, did it become a Regius Professorship with a settled salary and tenure.

18th Century

James Craig, the scion of a distinguished legal family, was a deeply knowledgeable and conscientious scholar. His successors were largely nominated by the Faculty of Advocates. Thomas Dundas (1706-1784), Kenneth Mackenzie (1699-1756), Robert Dick (d. 1796) were all diligent lecturers of genuine national or international standing but by the second half of the century, Edinburgh was increasingly losing students to Glasgow University whose Professor of Civil Law, John Millar (1735-1801), was teaching an innovative, modernized curriculum reflecting the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment, particularly those of Adam Smith. One of Millar's innovations was, however, rapidly introduced to Edinburgh: Robert Dick followed his Glasgow counterpart by lecturing in English rather than Latin (although oral examinations continued to be conducted in Latin).

The Law School's fortunes revived with the appointment of John Wilde (c1764-1840) in 1792. Influenced by Enlightenment developments, his course focused strongly on the historical development of Roman Law. Sadly, he was forced to demit his post in 1800 due to deteriorating mental health.

Under Cheape, examining switched to English - as well known as a satirist as a jurist, part of a literary circle at the Faculty with friends like J. G. Lockhart

The Professors of Civil Law remained undistinguished in the first half of the nineteenth century, the new dynamism of Roman law in Germany and other parts of the Continent largely passing them by. The Public Law chair was a sinecure left unfilled. There could be little doubt, however, but that the Faculty of Law at Edinburgh was now well established and secure. Glasgow had dramatically declined as a law school after Millar’s death in 1801. As the legal profession expanded dramatically in the period to 1830, student numbers at Edinburgh grew enormously: in some years there were well over 200 students in the Scots law class alone.

Professors of Civil Law

• 1710 - James Craig (1672-1732)
• 1732 - Thomas Dundas (1706-1784)
• 1745 - Kenneth Mackenzie (1699-1756)
• 1755 - Robert Dick (d. 1796)
• 1792 - John Wilde (c1764-1840)
• 1800 - Alexander Irving (1766-1832)
• 1827 - Douglas Cheape (1797-1861)
• 1842 - Archibald Campbell Swinton (1812-1890)
• 1862 - James Muirhead (1831-1889)
• 1889 - Henry Goudy (1848-1921)
• 1893 - James Mackintosh (1858-1944)
• 1938 - Matthew George Fisher (1888-1965)
• 1958 - Sir Thomas Broun Smith (1915-1988)
• 1968 - Alan Watson (1933- )
• 1981 - Peter Birks (1941-2004)
• 1987 - Vacant
• 2012 - John W. Cairns

Sources

• Alexander Bower, The History of the University of Edinburgh. 3 vols. Edinburgh, 1817-1830.
• John W. Cairns and Hector L. MacQueen, Learning and the Law: A Short History of Edinburgh Law School [[1], accessed 14 July 2015]
• Andrew Dalzel, History of the University of Edinburgh from its Foundation, 2 vols (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1862)
• Roger L. Emerson, Academic Patronage in the Scottish Enlightenment: Glasgow, Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008)
• W. M. Gordon, 'Swinton, Archibald Campbell (1812–1890)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)
• Sir Alexander Grant, The Story of the University of Edinburgh during its First Three Hundred Years, 2 vols (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1884)