The Francis Forbes Society for Australian Legal History (ACN099 158 620) is a registered public company, limited by guarantee.
The aims of the society, as expressed in its Constitution are to:
- Encourage the study and advance the knowledge of the history of Australian law
- Publish and promote, for the benefit of the public, books, journals, periodicals and other literary publications
- Arrange and promote, for the benefit of the public, continuing education
- Promote the compilation of authentic records relating to Australian and Indigenous law.
Become a member
The Society is dedicated to studying and documenting the history of Australian law. Its membership includes legal practitioners, academics, journalists and students. Benefits of membership include timely notification of legal history events via updates emailed to members from time to time and opportunities to obtain discounts on publications from time to time published or arranged by the Society.
About Sir Francis
Sir Francis Forbes was the first Chief Justice of New South Wales, between 13 October 1823 and 1 July 1837.
An informative summary on the career of Sir Francis Forbes is available at the Australian Dictionary of Biography. A profile of him and other chief justices may also be obtained from the history pages of the web site of the NSW Supreme Court.
The recent Francis Forbes Oration delivered by Society member, David Ash also contains some fascinating material on the life of Sir Francis Forbes. The text of the oration is available at Francis Forbes Oration 2013
Federation Press has recently published, as part of its series on the Lives of the Australian chief justices, a book on the life of Sir Francis Forbes. A review of this title was published in the Winter 2002 edition of Bar News.
Membership
Membership of the society is open to the public.
Please click on the following links for the application form
Make a donation
One of the Society’s objects is to encourage and promote research into Australian legal history and it maintains a fund for that purpose to which donations may be made – the Francis Forbes Fund (donations of $2.00 or more to which are tax deductible).
Annual Reports
The Francis Forbes Society for Australian Legal History’s annual reports from previous years.
