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The Society of Public Teachers of Law – the first seventy-five years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Philip H. Pettit*
Affiliation:
Equity University of Bristol; Society of Public Teachers of Law

Extract

I shall not attempt to give more than the briefest summary of the founding of the Society, for the story has already been ably told by someone with first-hand knowledge, namely, A. D. Bowers, Emeritus Member, Extraordinary, of the Society, whose account appears in the June 1959 issue of the Journal. It is not clear whether the originator of the idea of the Society's foundation was Edward Jenks, then Principal and Director of Legal Studies to The Law Society and later first holder of the Chair of English Law at the London School of Economics, or Henry Goudy, Regius Professor of the University of Oxford. What is clear, however, is that Jenks was the one who really got things moving. Indeed in the early days the Society was apparently sometimes referred to as ‘Jenks’ Trade Union’, to Jenks’ disgust.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 1983

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References

1. (1959) 5 JSPTL (NS) 1.

2. (1963) 7 JSPTL (NS) 174.

3. Jenks was present at the first meeting when the proposal failed to find a seconder, but was not in Fact presetnt at the two subsequent meetings at which the matter was further discussed.

4. Not 42 as stated by Bowers, who apparently failed to include the President.

5. Neither these minutes, nor the original circular letter, are held in the Society's archives.

6. These were (i) that the problems of legal education in Scotland and Ireland must necessarily differ in important fundamentals from those in England, (ii) that there would be great difficulty in securing the attendance of Scotch (sic) and Irish members at the meetings of the Committee, and, (iii) that their admission would increase the size of the Society so greatly as to make it unwieldy, and therefore militate against its usefulness.

7. (1974) 13 JSPTL (NS) 5.

8. (1980) 15 JSPTL (NS) 78.

9. (1966) 9 JSPTL (NS) 1.

10. (1975) 13 JSPTL (NS) 239.

11. Report of the Committee on Legal Education, Cmnd 4595

12. Published in the Newsletter, Winter 1982–3, p. 2.

13. Cmd 579.

14. The current statement is to be found in (1975) 13 JSPTL (NS) 332

15. (1974) 13 JSPTL (NS) 113.

16. (1960) 5 JSPTL (NS) 182

17. The respective committee reports led to the passing of the Defamation Act 1952, the Intestates' Estates Act 1952 and the Law Reform (Limitation of Actions etc) Act 1954.

18. (1975) 13, JSPTL (NS) 183.

19. The Society's memorandum to the Lord Chancellor is printed in (1958) 4 JSPTL (NS) 231.

20. See (1947) 1 JSPTL (NS) 48.