W.A. Wilson Memorial Lectures
WA (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. 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 WA 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 WA 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.”
2023
Dame Elizabeth Gardiner KC (hon)
Drafting legislation: the theory and the reality
2022
Nils Jansen (WWU Münster)
Hermann Kantorowicz’ Concept of Legal Science And the Social Role of Legal Scholarship, Today
2019
Rebecca Probert (Exeter)
Marriage, Religion and the State
2018
Danie Visser (Cape Town)
Unjustified Enrichment and Interest on Money - Profit, Hire or Empty Concept
See “Littlewoods Ltd v HMRC: Compound interest: Not so simple in enrichment cases?” 2018 British Tax Review 184 – 192 and “Gerard Noodt and seventeenth-century attitudes to charging interest for money”, in H Dondorp, M Schermaier and B Sirks (eds), De Rebus Divinis et Humanis: Essays in Honour of Jan Hallebeek (2019) 441-456.
2017
Sarah Worthington (Cambridge)
Enforcing Promises
2016
Sonia Meier (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg)
Unwinding Failed Contracts: New European Developments
Edinburgh Law Review vol 21(1) (2017) pp 1-29.
2015
John Blackie (University of Strathclyde)
Historically Informed Law Reform
2014
David Snyder (Washington College of Law)
Metamorphoses in the Law of Contract: A Mythological Lecture
2013
Reinhard Zimmermann (Max Planck Institute, Hamburg)
Damages in European Contract Law
(2014) 18 Edinburgh Law Review 193
2012
Robert Stevens (University of Oxford)
Insults
2012
George Gretton (University of Edinburgh)
On Law Commissioning and Other Things
(2013) 17 Edinburgh Law Review 119
2010
Lionel Smith (McGill University)
Scottish Trusts in the Common Law
(2013) 17 Edinburgh Law Review 283
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 Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne)
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