Annual Lectures
It was agreed at the
Society’s annual general meeting on 27 March 1965 that an address should
be given at future AGMs. It was also agreed at that meeting that the AGM, which
had previously been held in March, should be held in November. As a result of
this decision, the next AGM was held on 6 November 1965, so that there were two
AGMs that year. All subsequent AGMs have been held in November.
This year's lecture will be held in the Surgeons’ Hall, Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, on Saturday 3 November 2007, commencing at 11.30 am. It will be delivered by Sir Neil MacCormick, Professor of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations in the University of Edinburgh, whose title will be 'Stair and the Natural Law Tradition: Still Relevant?'. Non members are welcome to attend the lecture and are asked to arrive from 11.00 am.
A complete
list of the annual addresses given since 1965 is set out in the table below. Where
texts have been published, the appropriate reference is shown in the table.
| 1965 | Professor J M Halliday, Professor of Conveyancing, University of Glasgow | A Lawyer looks at Stair | 1966 SLT (News) 1-5 |
| 1966 |
Professor G W S Barrow, |
Judges and Judiciaries | Juridical Review, 16 n s (1971); Kingdom of the Scots (1973) 83-138 |
| 1967 |
The Hon Lord Walker, | The Scottish Judiciary during the First Half of the Twentieth Century | 1968 SLT (News) 91-2 |
| 1968 |
Most Rev James D Scanlan, | The Tribunal of the Sacred Roman Rota – Ancient and Modern | |
| 1969 | Sir
Thomas Innes of Learney, Lord Lyon King of Arms | From the Allod to the Feu | |
| 1970 | Sir
Robert Megarry, High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, later Vice-Chancellor | Some Rambles in the Foothills of Scots Law, with Random Glances towards the South | |
| 1971 | R
G Cant, Reader in Scottish History, University of St Andrews | The Scottish Legal System in relation to Scottish Political Conditions and Aspirations | |
| 1972 | The
Hon Lord Hunter, Senator of the College of Justice | The End of Assythment | |
| 1973 | Sir
James Ferguson of Kilkerran, Bart, read by Dr John Imrie, Chairman of Council, following Sir James’ death a week prior to the meeting | The Background to a Lord of Session | |
| 1974 | Professor
E L G Stones, University of Glasgow |
One Lawyer to another – F W Maitland and George Neilson of Glasgow | |
| 1975 | Dame Margaret Kidd QC | Recollections of 50 years of Parliament House | |
| 1976 | Professor
Joe McKnight, Professor of Law at the Southern Methodist University and Director of the Family Law Review Project for Texas | Experiences of a Mixed Legal Society: the American South West | Juridical Review 22 n s (1977) 177-193 |
| 1977 | Professor
Peter Stein, Regius Professor of Civil Law and Fellow of Queen’s College, Cambridge | Adam Smith on Law and Society | |
| 1978 | Professor
A W B Simpson, niversity of Kent |
Entails and Perpetuities | Juridical Review, 24 n s (1979) 1-20 |
| 1979 | The
Hon Lord Mackenzie Stuart, Judge of the European Court of Justice | The Lord Advocate and the French Spy | |
| 1980 | David
Williamson, Keeper of the Registers of Scotland | Registration –the last 100 Years and more | |
| 1981 | Professor Sir T B Smith | British Law: a Jacobean Phantasma | 1982 SLT (News) 157-164 |
| 1982 | Dr
John Imrie, Keeper of the Records of Scotland and Chairman of the Society | The Parliament of Scotland, a Postscript to an Auld Sang | |
| 1983 | Professor Alan Harding | Regium Majestatem amongst Medieval Law Books | Juridical Review 29 n s (1984) 97-111 |
| 1984 | The
Rt Hon Lord Avonside, Senator of the College of Justice | A Brief Address on the subject of Lord Stair | |
| 1985 | The
Rt Hon Lord Fraser of Tullybelton, Lord of Appeal in Ordinary | The House of Lords as Court of Last Resort for the United Kingdom | 1986 SLT (News) 33-37 |
| 1986 | Professor A A M Duncan | Who compiled the Register of Brieves? | |
| 1987 | James
J Robertson, MA, LLB, FSA Scot, Faculty of Law, University of Dundee | Aspects of Scottish Legal Research in the Archives of the Roman Rota and the Roman Penitentiary | Renaissance Studies, ii (1988) 339-346 |
| 1988 | The
Hon Lord Maxwell, Senator of the College of Justice and Chairman of the Scottish Law Commission | Why Change the Law? | |
| 1989 | The
Hon Lord Mackenzie Stuart, Judge of the European Court of Justice | Benjamin Franklin in Scotland | |
| 1990 | Dr William Ferguson | The Nature of the Crown in Scotland before 1707 | Stair Society, Miscellany III (vol 39) 1-26 |
| 1991 | Sheriff David B Smith | The Spiritual Jurisdiction 1560 - 1564 | Records of the Scottish Church History Society, xxv (1993) 1-18 |
| 1992 |
The Hon Lord Cullen, | The Evolution of Parliament House | |
| 1993 | Patrick
Cadell, Keeper of the Records of Scotland | What are the Public Records of Scotland? | |
| 1994 | The
Rt Hon Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, Lord Advocate, later Lord President and Lord of Appeal in Ordinary | As Others Saw Them – an address on the work carried out in the late 19th century and early 20th century by German scholars in examining the civil and criminal procedures in Britain which were used as models in the development of their own system | |
| 1995 | Dr
John Durkan, Department of Scottish History, University of Glasgow | The Origins and Development of the Teaching of Law in the Scottish Universities from the 13th to 16th Centuries, including references to their training abroad and the texts in use | |
| 1996 | Professor
Brian Levack, Professor of History at the University of Texas, Austin, Texas | The Criminal Law in the Age of Mackenzie: the Question of Judicial Torture | Stair Society Miscellany IV (vol 49) 185-198 |
| 1997 | W
D H Sellar, former Literary Director of the Society | Scots Law: Mixed from the Very Beginning? A Tale of Two Receptions | Edinburgh Law Review vol 4 (1) 3-18 |
| 1998 | Sheriff
J Irvine Smith, Vice President of the Society | The Trial of Captain Thomas Green for Piracy in 1705 | |
| 1999 | Professor
W M Gordon, former Literary Director of the Society | The Civil Law of Scotland | Edinburgh Law Review vol 5 (2) 130-144 |
| 2000 | Professor
Gero Dolezalek, Professor of Private Law, Roman Law and the History of Church Law, University of Leipzig | The Court of Session as a Jus Commune Court | Stair
Society Miscellany IV (vol 49) 51-84 |
| 2001 | Professor
Alan Watson, University of Georgia, USA | Transformations of Law: J.1.2., Stair and Mackenzie | Stair Society Miscellany IV (vol 49) 243-254 |
| 2002 | Professor
Reinhard Zimmermann, Director, Max-Planck Institute for Foreign Private Law and International Law, Hamburg | “Double Cross”, an account of a research project involving a comparison between Scots and South African private law | Published as Introduction, R Zimmerman, D Visser and K reid (eds), Mixed Legal Systems in Comparative Perspective: Property and Obligations in Scotland and South America (Oxford University Press, 2004) |
| 2003 | Dr
Athol Murray, former Keeper of the Records of Scotland | The Post-Union Court of Exchequer. The history of that court from 1707 to 1856, when its functions were transferred to the Court of Session | Stair Society, Miscellany V (vol 52) 103-131 |
| 2004 | Professor
Richard Helmholz, Ruth Wyatt Rosenson Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School | Scots Law in the New World: its Place in the Formative Era of American Law | Stair Society, Miscellany V (vol 52) 169-187 |
| 2005 | Professor David Ibbetson, Regius Professor of Civil Law, University of Cambridge | The Influence of Mixed Legal Systems on the English Common Law | |
| 2006 | Professor Olivia Robinson, Professor Emeritus of Roman Law, University of Glasgow | Law, Morality and Sir George MacKenzie | |
| 2007 | Professor Sir Neil MacCormick, Regius Professor of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations, University of Edinburgh |
Stair and the Natural Law Tradition: Still Relevant? |