Stair Society Lectures
The first occasion of an address being given at an AGM was in 1946. Professor A H Campbell, Regius Professor of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations in the University of Edinburgh, spoke on Jurisprudence and its Relevance to the Law of Scotland in a Historical Context.
Our Annual Lecture was inaugurated in 1965, when Jack Halliday, Professor of Conveyancing in the University of Glasgow, delivered an address entitled A Lawyer Looks at Stair.
A lecture has been delivered every year since then, as the focal point of our annual meeting. Lecturers have included, and continue to include, lawyers and legal historians of distinction from Europe and the United States as well as from Scotland and England, and many of their lecture texts have been published.
Note: Unfortunately due to misunderstandings we do not have a copy of the lecture given by Professor Catharine MacMillan in 2023 on the subject ‘Making the Imperial Tribunal more truly imperial in its constitution: the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and colonial judges.’
1972
1971
R G Cant, Reader in Scottish History, University of St Andrews
1970
Sir Robert Megarry, High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, later Vice-Chancellor
1969
1968
Most Rev James D Scanlan, Archbishop of Glasgow
1967
The Hon Lord Walker, Senator of the College of Justice
1966
Professor G W S Barrow, Professor of Mediaeval History, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
1965
Professor J M Halliday, Professor of Conveyancing, University of Glasgow

2024 Stair Society Annual Lecture
The Stair Society’s Annual General Meeting was held in the Mackenzie Building, Old Assembly Close, Edinburgh on Saturday 16 November 2024 by courtesy of the Faculty of Advocates. It was given by Professor Cynthia Neville will give the Annual Lecture. Her title is ‘March Law as Auld Law in the