The Regius Professorship of Laws is a professorship at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). It is one of the oldest chairs in the college, having been founded in 1668.History of the University of Dublin by Benjamin Sarsfield Taylor, Professor Mark Bell has held the post since July 2015.Trinity Appoints New Regius Professor of Laws Press-Release of Trinity College, Dublin, 17 July 2015.

History of the Chair In the founding charter of Trinity College, Elizabeth I granted the university the right to award degrees , including law. There were no other ways to train legally in Ireland until the mid-19th century. Even in early regulations, there was a professor of civil law who was responsible for the exams and the training standards. Before 1668, the teaching of jurisprudence was under the control of the university administration. One of the Fellows taught law for one semester. There was no permanent professorship.

The first mention of a publicly appointed professor is on 20 November 1667, when Henry Styles was appointed the first publ. Prof. Legum. By a letter of Charles II. On 4 November 1668, a professorship was newly established as the Regius Professor of Civil and Canon Law and supported with funds from the Act of Settlement with 40 pounds sterling per year.

Down through the centuries, the chair of Civil and Canon Law was usually occupied by a fellow from the college, a practice that was expressly prohibited, for example, in the Chair of Feudal and English Law (which was founded in 1761). When this latter chair came to require written examination regulations in the mid-19th century, the civil law chair was reformed at the same time, the salary was increased and the practice of appointing a fellow was abandoned. From then on, the professor had to be a doctor of law, a barrister with at least six years of professional experience. In 1871 it was even stipulated that a fellow appointed professor had to give up his fellowship.

Nevertheless, the chair was just a sinecure for many of the holders. Notable exceptions were people such as Francis Stoughton Sullivan, who later became the first Regius Professor of Feudal and English Law, or Arthur Brown, who also campaigned politically for the goals of the university.

It was not until the mid-19th century that the division of responsibilities between the Regius Professor of Laws (Roman law, general law and international law) and that of Feudal and English Law (property law) made the chair a permanent first-class position in university teaching.The Law School of University College Dublin: A History by W N Osborough, Four Courts Press , In 1944, Frances Elizabeth Moran took over the chair, becoming the first woman in Ireland (or indeed Britain) to be a professor in lawProf. goes to Queen's Trinity News, 16 May 1957 To date, no other woman had been appointed to a Regius Professorship of Laws at TCD.Resorting to Crime The inaugural lecture of James Chalmers as Regius Professor of Law, University of Glasgow, 17 January 2013.

List of Regius Professors of Laws

Regius Professors of Laws since its founding in 1688 include:Dublin University Calendar, 1893, p. 431

Henry Styles, 1668 George Brown, 1686 John Barton, 1693 Benjamin Pratt, 1704 John Elwood, 1710 Robert Shawe, 1740 John Forster, 1743 Brabazon Disney, 1747 John Whittingham, 1749 Francis Stoughton Sullivan, 1750 Patrick Duigenan, 1766 Michael Kearney, 1776 James Drought, 1778 Henry Joseph Dabzac, 1779 John Forsayeth, 1782 Gerald FitzGerald, 1783 Arthur Browne, 1785 Francis Hodgkinson, 1806 Robert Phibbs, 1808 Richard Graves, 1809 Francis Hodgkinson, 1810 Christopher Edmund Allen, 1817The Royal Kalendar, Or, Complete and Correct Annual Register for England, Scotland, Ireland, and America, for the Year 1817 - J. Debrett Richard MacDonnell, 1840 Henry Wray, 1841 John Lewis Moore, 1844 John Anster, 1850 Thomas E. Webb, 1867 Henry Brougham Leech, 1888 Charles Francis Bastable, 1908,Dublin University Calendar, 1911-12, Vol. II, p. 10 retired 1932The Dublin University Calendar (1939), p. 758. Vacant, 1932–34 Samuel Lombard Brown, 1934 Vacant, 1939–44 Frances Elizabeth Moran, 1944Great Irish Lives: An Era in Obituaries (Times Books, 2008), p. 209 Vincent Thomas Hyginus Delany, 1963"An Appreciation of Professor V.T.H. Delany", Trinity News, 30 January 1964, p. 5 John Desmond Morton, 1965 Charles Beuno McKenna, 1966 Robert Heuston, 1970Obituary: Professor Robert Heuston Independent, 3 January 1996 Paul O'Higgins, 1984 William Binchy, 1992 Mark Bell, 2015

List of Regius Professors of Feudal and English Law (1761–1934) In 1761, a second Regius Professorship was introduced by George III, the Regius Chair of Feudal and English Law.'The Places Most Fit for This Purpose': Francis Stoughton Sullivan and Legal Study at the University of Dublin (1761-6) by Seán Patrick Donlan, Vol. 20 (2005), pp. 120-139; Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society This chair would be continuously occupied until it was discontinued in 1934 and replaced by The Professorship of Laws.Trinity College Record Volume (1951), Hodges, Figgis & Co, London, p. 82-83 Francis Stoughton Sullivan, 1761 Patrick Palmer, 1766 Patrick Duigenan, 1776 Philip Cecil Crampton, 1816 Samuel Mountifort Longfield, 1834 Edmund Thomas Bewley, 1884 George Vaughan Hart, 1891Dublin University Calendar, 1911-12, Vol. II, p. 7 James Sinclair Baxter, 1909–33

References