School of Law School of Law
Edinburgh Centre for Private Law    

W A Wilson Memorial Lectures


The 13th W A Wilson Memorial Lecture will be given at 6 pm on Wednesday 7 March 2012 in lecture theatre 175, Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh. Professor George Gretton of the University of Edinburgh will speak on the subject of “On Law Commissioning and Other Things”.

Previous lectures were:

2011 Lionel Smith (McGill University) Scottish Trusts in the Common Law
2009 Hector MacQueen (University of Edinburgh) Scotland’s First Women Law Graduates: An Edinburgh Centenary H L MacQueen (eds), Miscellany Six (Stair Society vol 54, 2009) 221
2007 Lord Hope of Craighead (Lord of Appeal in Ordinary) The Strange Habits of the English H L MacQueen (eds), Miscellany Six (Stair Society vol 54, 2009) 309
2007 Vernon Palmer (Tulane University) Two Rival Theories of Mixed Legal Systems (2008) 12.1 Electronic Journal of Comparative Law
2004 Horatia Muir Watt (University of Paris - 1) European Integration, Legal Diversity and the Conflict of Laws (2005) 9 Edinburgh Law Review 6
2002 Shael Herman (Tulane University) Specific Performance: A Comparative Analysis (2003) 7 Edinburgh Law Review 5 and 194
2000 Keith Ewing (King’s College London) Constitutional Reform and Human Rights: Unfinished Business? (2001) 5 Edinburgh Law Review 297
 1999 Joe Thomson
(Scottish Law Commission and University of Glasgow)
    
1998 Eric Clive (Scottish Law Commission and University of Edinburgh) Law-Making in Scotland: From APS to ASP (1999) 3 Edinburgh Law Review 131
1997 Sir Anthony Mason (Former Chief Justice, High Court of Australia) Negligence and the Liability of Public Authorities (1998) 2 Edinburgh Law Review 3
1996 James Gordley (University of California at Berkeley) Contract and Delict: Toward a Unified Law of Obligations (1997) 1 Edinburgh Law Review 345
1995 Lord Rodger of Earlsferry (Lord Advocate) Thinking about Scots Law (1996) 1 Edinburgh Law Review 3


  
W A (Bill) Wilson (1928-1994) taught law at the University of Edinburgh from 1960 until his death in 1994 at the age of 65. From 1972 onwards he was the Lord President Reid Professor of Law. As is apparent from his publications, his academic interests were exceptionally wide. A memoir of Bill Wilson forms the first chapter of a series of essays which were published in his memory: see Hector L MacQueen (ed), Scots Law into the 21st Century: Essays in Honour of W A Wilson (1996).

Following his death a large number of former students and colleagues contributed to a fund for the establishment of a lecture series and the first W A Wilson Memorial Lecture was given on 17 May 1995 by Lord Rodger of Earlsferry in the Playfair Library, Old College in the University of Edinburgh. Lord Rodger began:

"It is a great honour to have been asked to give this lecture. None the less it would surely be wrong to conceal that for me as for everyone this occasion is tinged with much more than a little sadness. How much better it would have been if we were not here in memory of Bill Wilson, but rather we could still feel that, if fortune were good to us, we might see him approaching, ready for a chat, ready to exchange the latest gossip or to share news of some absurdity which he had detected in the far reaches of the statutory instruments which no one save him ever penetrated … He had an abundance of friends and in the days following his death you could meet few people in Scottish legal circles or in the wider circles of academic lawyers who were not anxious to share their particular Wilson anecdote, usually involving one of his drier than dry observations. This wealth of friendship is reflected not only in the huge attendance here this evening but also in a flood of contributions to the fund set up in his memory."
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