Category: In memoriam

It is with some sadness that we report the death, earlier this year, of Basil Edwards, Professor Emeritus at the University of South Africa and a well-known scholar on the history of South African law. Professor Edwards was  a firm friend of the Edinburgh Law School and spent a number of sabbaticals in Edinburgh conducting research on the historical links between the Law of Scotland and of South Africa.

With the permission of the Editors of Fundamina, The Journal of the Southern African Society of Legal Historians, we publish an extract from an obituary which will appear in print later this year. The obituary was written by Professor Elsabé Schoeman, University of Auckland, one of his former students:

‘He made a substantial contribution to South African law and legal literature. He was responsible for the chapters on “The Idea of Law”, “Legal Theory”, “The History of South African Law”, “Sources of South African Law” and “Public and Private International Law”, as well as, in conjunction with Prof Joan Church, the chapter on “Introduction to Indigenous Law and the Comparative Method”, in the 1500 page tour de force, Introduction to South African Law and Legal Theory (2nd edn, Butterworths, 1995 (reprint: 1997)). He also authored the monographic LAWSA title, Conflict of Laws (Butterworths, 1993). Apart from numerous articles (including his inaugural lecture, “Choice of Law in Delict: Rules or Approach?” (1979) 96 SALJ 48), notes and case comments, he participated in a number of Festschriften, which saw him unearth gems like Hughes v Wrankmore  ((1813-1814) Court of Appeals for Civil Cases at the Cape of Good Hope), an early international insolvency case. The Selective Paulus Voet (in collaboration with Dawie Kriel and with assistance from Paul du Plessis and Rena van den Berg), was his last academic publication and perhaps the greatest of them all. The final published work contains a translation of those sections of Paulus Voet’s De Statutis Eorumque Concursu Liber Singularis (Amstelodami, 1661) that are relevant to modern conflict of laws. These sections are placed in historical perspective within the context of the rise and fall of statutism in Western Europe, Great Britain, the United States of America and South Africa. The work concludes with a brief appraisal of Paulus Voet’s legacy in South African law.’

This blogger worked closely with Basil on the Paulus Voet project. It was a monumental work which on more than one occasion nearly drove us both to distraction. I will never forget his kindness and unfailing good humour in the final stages of the project. These are the marks of a world-class scholar and a true gentleman.

Basil Edwards was a remarkable scholar with a keen interest in Roman, Roman-Dutch and modern South African law. Through his scholarship, he continued a long and important tradition of historical scholarship in South African law. He will be missed.

This Blog did not include an obituary for Tony Weir. He was not keen that there should be one published, nor that there be a Gedenkschrift in his memory; but both in fact have now happened.  Our colleague Hector MacQueen produced an excellent obituary in our sibling Blog, Scots Law News: http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/sln/blogentry.aspx?blogentryref=8825  Now the Tulane Law Review has published a “Symposium” in his honour. In American Law Reviews symposiums are basically themed issues focused on an issue of debate; but Tony, a convivial type, would have appreciated its root meaning of a drinking party with conversation! But though Tony disapproved of Festschriften, he might well have forgiven the idea of a Gedenkschrift or posthumous liber amicorum, even if in a student-edited law review, another pet disapproval. Given your Blogger was one of the contributors, I shall not review the volume: its contents may be found listed and abstracted at http://www.tulanelawreview.org/category/87-4/  Given Tony’s interests, the essays range over Roman law, legal history, comparative law, and torts or delict, as well as touching on various Weir themes, such as friendship – no doubt an important part of a true symposium! There is also a good introduction by Shael Herman, who, along with the student editors, is to be congratulated. Given Tony’s liking for Tulane, I am sure his shade, if it still waits for the ferryman, would not mind.
One nice memorial to this remarkable man was the private publication (produced by Hart publishing) of a collection of his case notes: a genre of legal commentary in which he excelled: Tony Weir on the Case, ed. by Barnard, Cornish, Hopkins and McBride (Oxford, 2012).

This Blog is saddened to have to report the death of Robert Feenstra, a truly great legal historian. It is just over two years ago that your Blogger attended his 90th Birthday Symposium, a symposium at which the honorand spoke himself, both cogently and well.

It is too early to evaluate Professor Feenstra's career, or to judge his legacy; but he was certainly one of the most important legal historians of the twentieth century, most noted for his work on Roman law in the Middle Ages, notably the School of Orleans, Roman-Dutch law and early-modern law more generally. He had a particular interest in the intellectual history of law books and legal education. He was also a facilitator, even a fixer, and under him the Tijdschrift voor Rechtgeschiedenis developed into, in your blogger's view, the best general legal history periodical.

Though affable and generous with his time, Professor Feestra very definitely had the style of the grand man, who expected much. He once annouced to two vistors to the Netherlands, who wanted to visit and be shown round Leiden, that your  blogger would do it, as "John knows Leiden as well as anyone" (far from the truth). He met us all at the station in his car, bringing about one of the terrifying car journeys I periodically had with him driving, gave us coffee at his home, then still in Leiden, in what I think of as the other side of the station, before dropping us in central Leiden for me to give the guests a tour. I did my best.

His standards were exacting, once questioning your blogger's English grammar, and I have seen him make a doctoral candidate stand up and translate from Latin in public. But the high standards and expectations were applied to himself and to his own work.

The funeral service will take place this Saturday, 1 PM at the Crematorium Driehuis Westerveld, near Haarlem, reachable by local train from Amsterdam. 

As many readers of this Blog will know, Bill Gordon, Douglas Professor of Civil Law Emeritus at the University of Glasgow, died peacefully at home on 1 Septmber 2012. Rather fittingly,  after the Conference in Glasgow in commemoration of its disntiguished Alumnus, Lord Rodger, it was possible for those attending to go to the Thanksgiving Service for Bill at Jordanhill Parish Church, Glasgow on 8 Septmeber.

Bill was in many ways a quiet and unassuming man; but he was a very talented legal historian indeed. He studied in Aberdeen, where he had attended the classes of David Daube, as well having his doctorate supervised by Peter Stein; he also spent time in Leiden working on it at the chair of Robert Feenstra. With this pedgree and his achievements, his appointment as Douglas Professor in Glasgow in 1969 was well merited. He held the chair for thirty years.

Bill offered excellent service for many years as Literary Director of the Stair Society; and he long continued on its Council as a co-opted member, where his wisdom , experience, and understated, sly sense of humour were much appreciated. With this is mind he was elected Vice-President of thse Stair Society in 2011. His own University of Aberdeen honoured him with the honorary degree of LL.D. in 2005.