Skip to Main Content

Legal history: England & common law tradition: Legal Profession

Barristers & solicitors

The LawBod's collection of autobiographies & biographies of English common lawyers is shelved on Floor 2 with shelfmarks beginning KB. If the lawyer achieved great prominence, the first link below may well be useful.

The profession has also been the subject of collective studies - the boxes on this page show some of the most well-known. These will often be  in another section on the same floor, with shelfmarks beginning Legal Hist.

Many of the published records of the Inns of Court and Chancery are not kept in the LawBod, but are available to order from the Bookstacks or on open shelf in the Old Bod.

The titles to use for SOLO searches are:

Calendar of the Inner Temple Records

Register of admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, from the fifteenth century to the year 1944

Records of the Honorable Society of Lincoln's Inn : the Black Books.

Register of admissions to Gray's Inn 1521-1889.

More detailed help for geneaological or prosopographical studies try:

Holbourn's Sources of biographical information on past lawyers (1999)  Ref Bibl Cw UK H723b.

Brooks & Heber: My ancestor was a lawyer Ref Bibl Cw UK B814

Don't forget articles in journals: use the Index to Legal Periodicals and Bibliography of British and Irish History to find them!

Useful Free Websites

Prosopographical Studies

Related Commentary

Possible Oxon alumnus/alumna?

Please see the sources suggested by OU Archives colleagues at link below: