Portal:Law/Biography/Week 27 2006
Sir William Blackstone, (July 10, 1723 – February 14, 1780) was an English jurist and professor who produced the historical treatise on the common law called Commentaries on the Laws of England, first published in four volumes over 1765–1769. It had an extraordinary success, said to have brought the author £14,000, and still remains the best general history of the subject.
After practising in the courts of Westminster for several years, he returned to Oxford in 1758 when another lawyer, Charles Viner, established an endowed chair at the university for a lecturer in law. Viner's endowed chair became known as the Vinerian professorship, and continues to exist to this day.
In addition to the Commentaries, Blackstone published treatises on Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forests. In 1761 he won election as a Member of Parliament for Hindon and "took the silk" as a king's counsel.