Legal History at Glasgow

The University of Glasgow has an active and engaged community of historians who write, teach and supervise in a wide number of areas of legal history.  Legal historians in the School of Law convene under the headship of Prof Ernest Metzger. The School's particular strengths lie in Scottish legal history, European legal history, and Roman law.

Members are engaged widely in projects and ventures nationally and internationally.  They hold offices in historical societies and on the boards of periodicals, and speak at international venues.  They contribute actively to the literature.

This site

Visitors to this site will find information about members; their interests and their books; and the courses they teach.  There is also information about projects and ventures relating to legal history, supported by the University of Glasgow.

British Legal History Conference

The 21st British Legal History Conference will be hosted by the University of Glasgow School of Law in 2013. Full information about the conference is available from the link to the left.

William M. Gordon, MA, LLB, PhD, Hon LLD, FRSE (1933-2012)

We are sad to report that Professor William Gordon, Douglas Professor of Civil Law Emeritus, died on 1 September 2012.

He began his career at the University of Aberdeen, where he was a pupil of David Daube, Peter Stein and T B Smith. He qualified as a solicitor and then lectured at the University of Aberdeen and University of Glasgow before being appointed to the Douglas Chair in 1969, previously held by Tony Thomas and then Alan Watson. He was Literary Director of the Stair Society from 1985 to 1998, was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1995, and was awarded the honorary degree of LLD by the University of Aberdeen in 2005. He retired from the Douglas Chair in 1999 to become a professorial research fellow in the School of Law. His major publications include Roman Law, Scots Law, and Legal History. Selected Essays (2007), Scottish Land Law (1989), currently in its third edition (2009-, with Scott Wortley), Studies in the Transfer of Property by Traditio (1970), and European Legal History: Sources and Institutions (2000, co-authored with O F Robinson and T D Fergus). He has also edited (with T D Fergus), Legal History in the Making : Proceedings of the Ninth British Legal History Conference, Glasgow 1989 (1991), and (with O F Robinson) The Institutes of Gaius (1988). He was elected Vice-President of the Stair Society in 2011.