Speeches to note: Lord Mansfield and the Culture of Improvement

06/08/2008

Chief Justice Spigelman AC has delivered an address�to the Centre for Independent Studies Consilium, which was held at Coolum on 2 August 2008. "Lord Mansfield and the Culture of Improvement" examines the role of the chief justice of the Court of Kings Bench from 1756 to 1788. Lord Mansfield "played a critical role in the ... success of London as a commercial and financial city, of which its residents remain the beneficiary to this day", the chief justice said.

"Mansfield found English law a feudal inheritance, preoccupied with real property, and left it with a vibrant set of principles for a commercial, and soon an industrial, society. The comparative significance of property was transformed during this era – from real or tangible physical property to pieces of paper bearing promises: government debt, insurance policies, bank notes, bills of exchange, shares in joint stock companies, options and contracts of all kinds."

View the chief justice's address>

6 August 2008