Professor Warren Swain
Warren Swain is an Associate Professor of Law in the TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland. From the 1st of July he will be a Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Auckland. He was educated at Hertford College Oxford and was previously a Stipendiary Lecturer in Law at Hertford College and Oxford University Law Faculty, Lecturer in Law at the University of Birmingham and Lecturer in Law at Durham University. His research is concerned with the history of private law and intellectual history in so far as it relates to law. He is also interested in legal biography. His book, The Law of Contract 1670-1870 was recently published by the Cambridge University Press.
presents
‘Lord Mansfield: Man and Myth’
More than two hundred years after his death, Lord Mansfield continues to fascinate. Ever since John Holliday produced his A Life of William Late Earl of Mansfield in 1797, a work described by Lord Campbell of all people as, ‘the worst specimen of biography to be found in any language’, a great deal has been written about him. The most recent addition to the genre appeared in just 2013. Traditional accounts of Lord Mansfield stress his role in founding commercial law, his use of equity and his willingness to depart from precedent. This caricature of Lord Mansfield’s jurisprudence contains a kernel of truth. It is amounts to a serious oversimplification. This seminar will investigate some of these established myths and consider some counter examples in order to create a more nuanced account of the legal life of the Chief Justice.
