George Joseph Bell's Inaugural Lecture

Pages341-357
AuthorKenneth G C Reid
Date01 September 2014
DOI10.3366/elr.2014.0228
Published date01 September 2014
INTRODUCTION Appointment to the Chair

On 3 January 1822 David Hume, the long-serving and distinguished Professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University, was appointed to judicial office as a Baron of Exchequer.1

G C H Paton, “A biography of Baron Hume”, in Baron David Hume's Lectures 1786–1822, ed G C H Paton, vol VI (Stair Society vol 19, 1958) 370–371. Hume took up his appointment on 15 January 1822, the day after his resignation from the Chair.

Reacting swiftly to the news, and anticipating Hume's resignation from the Chair which was to take place on 14 January, a prominent member of the Bar wrote as follows:2

I am grateful to my colleague Dan 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, Application for the Chair of Scottish Law (1822).

26, Hill Street, January 9, 1822

Sir,

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. The distinction of such an Office, conferred by the free voice of the Faculty of Advocates, I consider as one of the highest honours of the Profession; and my election to this Charge as one of the most important trusts which the Public has reposed in our body; But, encouraged as I have been by the kind partiality of my friends, and in the hope that, should the election fall on me, I may be enabled, by that free and unreserved intercourse which I have hitherto enjoyed with my Brethren, to supply, in the performance of the duty, some of those defects of which I am conscious, I beg to propose myself for your consideration as a Candidate.

I have the honour to be,

SIR,

Your most obedient and faithful Servant

The writer was George Joseph Bell and the undisclosed recipient may well have been the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, Mathew Ross;3

On Mathew Ross, “a worthy innocent man .. but with not a particle of worldly knowledge”, see Lord Cockburn, Memorials of His Time (1856) 405–407.

for, under the procedure laid down by statute a century earlier,4

Edinburgh Beer Duties Act 1722 (9 Geo I c 14).

the appointment to the Chair of Scots Law was made by the Town Council of Edinburgh on the recommendation of the Faculty of Advocates.5

The Act required a leet of two names, but by this time the practice had developed of including as the second name a person whose position excluded him from appointment.

If the recipient was indeed the Dean, the letter appears to have had the desired effect: it was the Dean who now proceeded to propose Bell for the Chair, seconded by Sir Walter Scott, and Bell's election by the Faculty was unanimous. Bell's qualifications for the position could indeed hardly be doubted. By now in his early 50s,6

Bell was born on 26 March 1770.

he had practised at the Bar for 30 years, given courses of lectures on conveyancing for the Society of Writers to the Signet,7

From 1816 to 1818, in place of his deceased elder brother, Robert: see W M Gordon, “Bell, George Joseph (1770–1843)” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004).

and was the author of a widely admired work, the Commentaries on the Law of Scotland and on the Principles of Mercantile Jurisprudence, currently in its third edition. As the Caledonian Mercury noted, Bell's appointment was regarded as 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”.8

Caledonian Mercury 2 March 1822.

The first or inaugural lecture

Hume's final lecture to the class of Scots Law was delivered on 12 January 1822, three days before taking up his position as a Baron of Exchequer;9

Paton (n 1) 371.

thereafter his lectures were read out by a fellow advocate, the future Lord Medwyn.10

John Hay Forbes, Lord Medwyn (1776–1854).

By the time that Bell's appointment was ratified by the Town Council, on 27 February, the session was nearing its end, and there was no need for him to assume lecturing duties until the autumn. In the intervening months Bell would have ample time to prepare his first course of lectures. This would comprise around 100 lectures, given daily from November to April between the hours of 3 and 4 pm.11

For Bell's lectures during the years in which he held the Chair of Scots Law (1822–43), see K G C Reid, “From text-book to book of authority: the Principles of George Joseph Bell” (2011) 15 EdinLR 6 at 14–19.

Students ranged in age from 16 to 25, and in Bell's first year there were 257 of them.12

Evidence Oral and Documentary taken and received by The Commissioners appointed by His Majesty George IV, July 23d, 1826; and re-appointed by His Majesty William IV, October 12th, 1830; for visiting the Universities of Scotland. Volume I: University of Edinburgh (PP 1837 vol XXXV) (henceforth Royal Commission Evidence) 186, App 131.

There was no tradition of a special lecture to mark the new appointment, and Bell, like his predecessors, would inaugurate the Chair simply by giving the first lecture in his course. Nonetheless that lecture, given on Tuesday 12 November 1822, was evidently a special occasion. The Scotsman described the scene as follows:13

The Scotsman 16 November 1822.

Our readers, we imagine, will all agree that the circumstance which at present is most deserving of notice under this head,14

The head in question was “Law”.

is the commencement, on Tuesday last, of a Course of Lectures on Scots Law by the learned Author of COMMENTARIES ON THE BANKRUPT LAW of SCOTLAND.15

Perhaps an unfortunate manner of expressing the title of that distinguished work.

In the groups, or we might say crowds collected in the square of the University, we observed a good many strangers, with several of the most distinguished members of the Bar. Considerable anxiety was manifested on account of its being uncertain which class room was to be occupied; and when the room was fixed upon, it was instantly crowded, and many gentlemen found it impossible to gain admission, while others could hear but very imperfectly
As for the lecture itself, the report said no more than this:

It obviously proceeded from a mind imbued deeply with the importance and dignity of the subject, and was distinguished no less by a classic elegance of manner, than a philosophic spirit. It gave an earnest, that in the future course, practical details would be rendered illustrative of principles; and that, while the students would be taught to know what the law actually was, they would also be furnished with the means of forming an opinion of what it ought to be.

Hitherto, these brief and uninformative remarks were thought to be the only surviving evidence of the content of Bell's first lecture. Recently, however, a set of student notes has become available; formerly in private hands,16

The last of the private owners was Professor George Gretton, who donated the notes to Edinburgh University Library.

it has now been lodged in Edinburgh University Library. The notes, which cover all of Bell's first year as professor, beginning on 12 November 1822 and ending, rather suddenly, many months later with the words “Interrupted by the Circuit”, are exceptionally clear and full. They occupy 211 pages of a bound folio volume under the heading Notes on The Law of Scotland From the Lectures of Mr Bell, Edinburgh College, 1822–23. The author is unknown. The neatness of the hand suggests that the notes were written up as a fair copy after each lecture

Of course, student notes, even good ones, are not the same as Bell's actual text. Yet in the absence of a copy of that text – and none is known to have survived – they provide as reliable an account of Bell's words as is now likely to be found. Having regard to the difficulties of capturing all that was said by someone speaking at normal speed, it may be assumed that the notes do not form a complete record of Bell's inaugural lecture. Further, the student may have chosen to be selective in what he committed to paper. There will, therefore, be omissions in the notes, and perhaps significant ones. But in respect of those parts of the lecture which the student was able or chose to record, there is no reason to question the accuracy of what he wrote – a view which, as we will see, tends to be supported by comparison with notes taken by other students in later years.

Content

The introductory part of Bell's course of lectures occupies the first sixteen pages of the student's notes.17

At the end of this Bell turns to his first substantive topic, which is obligations and contract.

The length alone would indicate material which is more extensive than could possibly have been covered in Bell's initial lecture on 12 November;18

The first page of the notes is headed “Edinburgh 12th Nov 1822”.

and as the thirteenth page gives a date of 14 November,19

For the possibility that this date should actually have been Friday 15 November, see n 57 below.

it seems reasonable to suppose that the introduction was spread over two lectures or, if a lecture was also given on 13 November, over three. That being so it is not possible to know at what precise point the first, or inaugural, lecture finished. Nor, probably, does it matter very much, for it is evident from the thematic unity of the material that Bell viewed it as a single subject, regardless of the divisions imposed by the tyranny of the one-hour lecture. In that spirit there is reproduced below the notes taken on all of the introductory material

Bell's introductory material can be seen as comprising three distinct parts, indicated below by (editorial) headings. Bell begins with an account of the nature of law and of the means of studying...

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