by Larissa Reid

Legal Textbooks in the Colony of New South Wales

This project by Larissa Reid is an attempt to identify the legal textbooks that were available in the colony of New South Wales. This has been done by examining the textbooks which were cited in reported judgments from the period, a kind of ‘reverse engineering’. These reported judgments provide a representative sample of cases. Anyone with an interest in this work on legal textbooks is invited to contact Larissa Reid at: larissa.reid@gmail.com

How would a person in NSW in the 1800s find out what the law was?  It is one thing to say that the law of England applied, quite another to find the answer to a particular legal question.

Part of the answer is that Judges and practitioners used legal textbooks to research the law. They sometimes went further and cited textbooks as authority for propositions of law in their own right.

This project is an attempt to identify the legal textbooks that were available in the colony of New South Wales. This has been done by examining the textbooks which were cited in reported judgments from the period, a kind of ‘reverse engineering’. These reported judgments provide a representative sample of cases.

I have searched the following law reports for references to legal textbooks (including abridgments and digests):

• Kercher Reports (1788-1827)
• Dowling’s Select Cases (1828-1844)
• Legge’s Reports (1825-1862)

I have compiled an alphabetical list of cited textbooks, noting the cases in which they were cited. Extracts from the reports have been included to show the context of the citation.

I have also compiled chronological list, arranged by case. This notes all the textbooks cited in the case, again with extracts from the report to show the context in which the book was cited.

A list of the most cited textbooks has also been included.

It would not have been possible to undertake this research without the work of Bruce Kercher, Tim Castle, Brent Salter and all who contributed to the publication of the Kercher Reports and Dowling’s Select Cases. I would also like to thank Justice Geoff Lindsay for his support and encouragement.

This is a work in progress. There are still a few citations to unravel (e.g. ‘Arch’ could refer to one of many textbooks by Archbold) and there is further analysis to be done.  It has been made available on the Forbes Society website so that it may be used by others interested in Australian legal history.

Comments and suggestions are welcome: larissa.reid@gmail.com

Larissa Reid

Law Librarian

BA, MIM (Library & Information Management)