Albert Venn Dicey had long wished for a professorship. There were four chairs in law at Oxford at this time. He had tried for the Chichele Professorship of International Law, but it went to his friend Thomas Erskine Holland. The Regius Professorship of Civil Law was held by his friend James Bryce. That left the Corpus Professorship of Jurisprudence and the Vinerian Professorship of Common Law. As it happened, both chairs became vacant at about the same time. Sir Henry Maine resigned as Professor of Jurisprudence in late 1878 to become Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and John Robert Kenyon, who had been the Vinerian Professor since 1844, died in April 1880. Long before his death, Kenyon had more or less retreated to his ‘beloved Shropshire’ and the Vinerian chair was effectively in abeyance.1 However, the university took steps to reconstitute and revitalise the chair. At this time, the Vinerian professorship in law was attached to All Souls with an annual salary (£700) thought sufficient to attract worthy candidates, and it was renamed the Vinerian Professorship of English Law.2