From Text-Book to Book of Authority: The Principles of George Joseph Bell
| Author | Kenneth G C Reid |
| Date | 01 January 2011 |
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2011.0002 |
| Pages | 6-32 |
| Published date | 01 January 2011 |
On Saturday 2 March 1822 it was reported in the
On Wednesday last, the Magistrates and Town Council elected George Joseph Bell, Esq. advocate, to be Professor of the Law of Scotland in the room of the Hon. Mr Baron Hume. By the constitution of this professorship, the election is made from a leet of two, transmitted to the Council from the Faculty of Advocates, one of whom is always a person whose official rank is understood to exclude him from the situation of an actual candidate. In the present instance, Mr. Bell has been called to this important and arduous station by the unanimous voice of his brethren; a distinction which he is felt to have merited, not only by his well known professional talents and learning, but by his eminent services as an institutional writer on some of the most important and difficult branches of our municipal law.
As might be expected, Bell had solicited his election. A letter survives dated 9 January 1822 to an unknown recipient (perhaps the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates) which begins as follows: “On coming to town this afternoon, I learn that the Chair of the Professor of Scottish Law is likely to become vacant by the appointment of Mr Hume to the Court of Exchequer. And some of my friends, thinking of me I fear more favourably than I deserve, have urged me to put myself in nomination as a Candidate.” I am grateful to Daniel Carr for discovering and transcribing this letter, which is held in the Library of the University of St Andrews as part of a volume of early nineteenth century pamphlets and catalogued as G J Bell,
Bell was born on 26 March 1770.
The two volumes of the first edition were published, respectively, in 1800 and 1804. In 1800 the work was known as
More was to succeed to the Chair on Bell's death in 1843.
On 17 Feb 1829 John Fullerton replaced Lord Eldin, and on 24 June 1829 Sir James Wellwood Moncreiff replaced Lord Alloway. See G Brunton,
One reason for the failure of Bell's candidacy may have been his support for the separate Jury Court, which was unpopular in parts of the legal profession. Bell had been a member of the law reform commission on court proceedings which sat in 1823-4 and he produced a first and controversial draft of what was to become the Court of Session Act 1825.
See N Phillipson,
G W Wilton,
To make matters worse, his health was precarious in early 1824, due apparently to overwork. See
Quoted in Phillipson,
The poor Devil has almost entirely lost his business, which was once very respectable; but the Body of Writers were so angry with him for his conduct in drawing up the Judicature Bill, in principles so different from what he had himself professed, & from what the Report of the Commission authorised, that they have withheld their business from him to a very serious degree. On which account, as he has a large family, & suffered severe loss by his Eccentric & vagabond brother John, the Surgeon, I would wish that he had a permanent situation in addition to his professorship.
In the event, no “permanent position” was found for another five years. But when the Whigs came to power following the election of 1830, the new Lord Advocate, Francis Jeffrey – an old friend as well as a near contemporary
Jeffrey was three years younger, having been born on 23 Oct 1773.
– appointed Bell as one of the principal clerks of session, a position which had also been held by David Hume during the latter years of his tenure of the Scots Law Chair.It is sometimes said that Bell replaced Sir Walter Scott (who in 1822 had seconded Bell's nomination to the Chair): see e.g. D M Walker,
As much of the income derived from student fees, the amount received depended on student numbers. In general these seem to have fallen during Bell's tenure of the Chair: see text at n 47.
On the workings of this commission, see W M Gordon,
According to Lord Cockburn, Jeffrey “thought himself almost sufficiently rewarded for having taken office” as Lord Advocate by being able to appoint Bell as a principal clerk of session, adding that Jeffrey “would have made him a judge if there had been a vacancy”.
Lord Cockburn,
The Clerkship of Session, vacant by the death of Mr Hamilton, has been bestowed upon Mr George Joseph Bell. He at the same time retains the chair of Scots Law, and as the two places will be nearly equal in emolument to a seat on the bench, we trust Mr Bell's promotion will stop here, and that he will long retain the academical situation which he is so well qualified to fill.
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