Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I LAYING DOWN THE LAW: 600–1500
- PART II CONFLICT OF LAWS: 1500–1766
- PART III THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LAW
- 18 The Purity of England's Air
- 19 The Menace of the Mob
- 20 The Fear of the Felon
- 21 Garrow's Law?
- 22 The Tongue of Cicero: Thomas Erskine
- 23 The Drum Major of Liberty: Henry Brougham
- 24 The Bonfire of the Inanities: Peel, Public Protection and the Police
- 25 Lunacy and the Law
- 26 Necessity Knows No Law
- 27 The Apollo of the Bar: Edward Marshall Hall
- PART IV THE RULE OF LAW: 1907–2014
- Bibliography
- Index
21 - Garrow's Law?
from PART III - THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LAW
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2015
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I LAYING DOWN THE LAW: 600–1500
- PART II CONFLICT OF LAWS: 1500–1766
- PART III THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LAW
- 18 The Purity of England's Air
- 19 The Menace of the Mob
- 20 The Fear of the Felon
- 21 Garrow's Law?
- 22 The Tongue of Cicero: Thomas Erskine
- 23 The Drum Major of Liberty: Henry Brougham
- 24 The Bonfire of the Inanities: Peel, Public Protection and the Police
- 25 Lunacy and the Law
- 26 Necessity Knows No Law
- 27 The Apollo of the Bar: Edward Marshall Hall
- PART IV THE RULE OF LAW: 1907–2014
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
A lawyer is to do for his client all that his client might fairly do for himself, if he could.
Dr Johnson (James Boswell, Journal)The art of cross-examination is not the art of examining crossly. It's the art of leading the witness through a line of propositions he agrees to until he's forced to agree to the one fatal question.
John Mortimer, Clinging to the WreckageOne of the beneficiaries and main instigators of these changes was a barrister who was largely lost to history until he was recently resuscitated by academic historians, and latterly by the BBC: William Garrow. His fall into rapid obscurity is due to the fact that unlike his great contemporaries he was no defender of civil liberties and no great orator. In his later years he became a Tory MP and Attorney-General who opposed both political and penal reform, and, in cases of criminal libel, defended the use of special juries selected by the Crown. Perhaps paradoxically, Garrow's early years as a barrister – mainly for the defence – mark him out as one of the pioneers of the art of advocacy and of the adversarial system. He helped effect a revolution in the conduct of court proceedings and greatly improved the lot of the accused.
Born in Middlesex, the son of a Scottish clergyman and schoolmaster, Garrow was apprenticed to Thomas Southouse, an attorney in Cheapside, who encouraged his young protégé to strive for the Bar. After completing his articles, Garrow enrolled in Lincoln's Inn in 1778, and was called five years later. For the eight years he had lived in London he had been fascinated by the criminal law, and regularly attended the Old Bailey. He now stepped out with wig and gown onto the familiar stage on which he would perform wonderfully for the next two decades.
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- Law, Liberty and the ConstitutionA Brief History of the Common Law, pp. 201 - 205Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2015