Blackstone, William

Born: 1723-07-10 London, United Kingdom

Died: 1780-02-14 England, United Kingdom

Flourished: Oxford, United Kingdom

William Blackstone was an English attorney, jurist, professor, legislator, and author. Orphaned at the age of twelve, Blackstone passed to his brother, a London surgeon. Educated at Charterhouse School, Blackstone matriculated at Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1738. He earned a Bachelor of Civil Law, became a fellow of All Souls College, won admittance to the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar in 1746. Without powerful friends or connections, Blackstone's practice as a barrister was small, but he busied himself with administrative work at Oxford, contributing to the completion of the Codrington Library and reforming the accounting system of All Souls College. Passed over for the professorship of civil law at Oxford in 1752, Blackstone embarked on a series of lectures on law at Oxford. These lectures earned him wide acclaim, and in 1758, Blackstone became the first Vinerian Professor of English Law at Oxford. Another series of lectures brought him considerable attention and fame, allowing him to combine his professorship with an expanded law practice. In 1761, Blackstone won election to Parliament from the rotten borough of Hindon and received appointment at principal of New Inn Hall. In 1765, he completed the first of four volumes of his Commentaries on the Laws of England. Completed in 1769, Blackstone's Commentaries proved a huge commercial and critical success, becoming the standard text for prospective law students in both England and the United States. Abraham Lincoln was known to have read the Commentaries in his law studies, and he recommended it to a prospective pupil in 1858. With a growing legal practice and failing health, Blackstone resigned from his professorship and principalship in 1766. He retired from Parliament and in February 1770, he received appointment as justice of the Court of Common Pleas. Except for a few months on the Court of King's Beach, Blackstone remained on the Court of Common Pleas until his death.

Blackstone married Sarah Clitherow in 1761. The couple had nine children together.

G. P. MacDonnell. "Blackstone, Sir William," Dictionary of National Biography, ed. by Leslie Stephen (New York: MacMillan, 1886), 5:133-39; Abraham Lincoln to James T. Thornton; Abraham Lincoln to James T. Thornton; Gravestone, Saint Peter's Churchyard, Oxfordshire, England, UK.