Lincoln's Inn

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For the Lincoln's Inn Society at Harvard Law School see Lincoln's Inn Society. Coordinates: 51°31′01.65″N, 00°06′52.48″W

Lincoln's Inn Coat of Arms
Lincoln's Inn Coat of Arms
Library (left) and Bencher's rooms (right)
Library (left) and Bencher's rooms (right)
Chancery Lane entrance
Chancery Lane entrance

The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn. Although Lincoln's Inn is able to trace its official records to 1422 i.e. beyond those of the other three, by tradition, none of the Inns claims to be the oldest of the four.

The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is said to take its name from Henry de Lacy, third Earl of Lincoln, who died in 1311. His own great house was adjacent and he is credited with being the Society's patron. Although the other three Inns of Court are of comparable antiquity, having evolved from uncertain origins in the fourteenth century, Lincoln's Inn can claim the oldest extant records, the Black Books, which record its principal activities from 1422 to this day.

The present character of Lincoln's Inn owes much to the fact that its precincts and buildings - the medieval Hall and Gateway abutting onto Chancery Lane, the late seventeenth century New Square in the centre, and the magnificent Victorian gothic Great Hall and Library beside Lincoln's Inn Fields - survived nearly unscathed the devastations of the Blitz. Striking as they are, these buildings however are not merely architectural and historical tourist attractions but provide the professional home for the practising bar and many of the educational facilities for the training of students. It is to meet those needs that the Inn exists and on which it expends the bulk of its resources.

It is near Holborn, in the London Borough of Camden, just on the border with the City of London and the City of Westminster, near the Royal Courts of Justice. The Inn lies to the north of the Strand (and the two Temples) and to the south of High Holborn (and Gray's Inn); Chancery Lane being the nearest tube station.

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[edit] Architecture

Stone Buildings were designed by Sir Robert Taylor and the Great Hall by the father and son architects, Philip and Philip Charles Hardwick. Another famous architect, Giles Gilbert Scott, also contributed to the Great Hall and it can be clearly seen which part Philip Hardwick wanted to be known for as his initials are shown one side of the building as P.H. - 1843.

[edit] Membership

The three ranks of membership of the Inn are students, barristers and benchers. The lowest rank, that of student (once known as "inner barrister"), is open to all of good character who satisfy certain educational requirements, which nowadays include acceptance by a British university for a degree course. On obtaining a law degree, passing the Bar Vocational Course, and "keeping" the requisite number of terms by dining in hall sufficiently often during the seven dining periods in the year, the student qualifies for call to the Bar. The Inn plays a vigorous part in supplementing a pupil's formal training by arranging debates, moots, instruction and exercises in advocacy, and experience as a judge's marshal. There is also a system of sponsorship whereby practising barristers give general assistance to students on an individual basis. Call to the Bar is made by the Treasurer of the Inn on one of the five call days in the year. The student then becomes a barrister, or, as it was once called, an outer or "utter" barrister. In order to attract new members of the highest calibre, the Inn provides scholarships, bursaries, awards and prizes worth over £1.1 million ($2 million).

[edit] Famous Members and Notable Alumni

Names famous in the law naturally feature among its alumni, such as Sir Matthew Hale and Lord Mansfield, Chief Justices of the Kings Bench in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries or more recently, Lord Denning and Lord Hailsham, but it has also served as a training ground for those whose achievements were in other fields. Fifteen Prime Ministers, from Pitt to Tony Blair, have been members. The names of the novelists Charles Reade, Charles Kingsley, Wilkie Collins, Rider Haggard, and John Galsworthy will all be found in the membership records. Of literary figures, perhaps standing rather higher than those is John Donne, who was Preacher to the Society and laid the foundation stone of the present Chapel, built in 1623. And perhaps the most famous name of them all, Thomas More, admitted as a student in 1496, he went on to become a bencher and governor of the Inn.[1]

[edit] Statesmen

[edit] Politicians, Ministers and Law Officers

[edit] Judges

[edit] Lawyers

  • Anthony Grabiner, former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the London School of Economics
  • William Garrow, established cross-examination as a cornerstone of the adversarial trial system
  • Frank Lockwood, represented the English Bar at the 19th meeting of the American Bar Association
  • Cherie Blair, former first lady of the United Kingdom
  • Fidelis Oditah, prospective Governor of Delta State, Nigeria
  • James Hope-Scott, famous ecclesiastical lawyer
  • Peter Prescott, intellectual property law specialist

[edit] Jurists and Scholars

[edit] Writers, Poets and Philosophers

[edit] Other


[edit] Lincoln's Inn Library

East end of the Library
East end of the Library

The Lincoln's Inn Library is of ancient foundation - it is first mentioned in the Inn's records in 1471. The Library holds about 150,000 volumes, the core of which is a comprehensive range of English legal materials for the practitioner and bar student including important collections of rare books and manuscripts; by no means all connected with the law. The most important are the Hale Manuscripts. They take their name from Sir Matthew Hale, Chief Justice of the King's Bench and great antiquary, who bequeathed his large personal collection on his death in 1676. The collection includes most of the Library's 63 medieval manuscripts.

The present library building stands at the north end of the Great Hall. It is approached by the staircase which also leads to the Benchers' Rooms; and beneath them are the offices of the Inn. These structures were built at the same time as the Great Hall, in 1843-45, though the library was extended eastwards in 1872, to the design of Sir George Gilbert Scott, R.A. Before the present building was erected, the library was at No.2 Stone Buildings; and before 1787 there was a library close to the Old Hall. As a collection of books, the library has been in continuous existence for over five centuries. In addition to law reports, statutes, legal textbooks and all the usual material of a working law library, there are many other books on a wide range of subjects, including topography, local records, parish registers and many branches of literature.

Apart from an outstanding collection of English legal treatises and extensive collections of early civil and continental law, the Library has a large collection of pamphlets and tracts, over two thousand of which date from before 1700, and which contain important material of interest to many apart from legal historians.

The Library also holds extensive collections of Commonwealth legislation and law reports (though relatively few textbooks and journals). The Library's current acquisitions policy is to concentrate mainly on Australia and New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore and the Pacific, and Africa, with Inner Temple Library having primary responsibility for Canada, Hong Kong, India, Pakistan and the Caribbean, though the Library does hold some materials from those jurisdictions.

The Library holds a virtually complete set of all Parliamentary papers and debates from 1801. The main exception is House of Commons Standing Committee debates (published separately from the main Hansard) which, other than for a small selection for sessions 1954-55 to 1971-72, are held only from 1983-84.


[edit] Preachers of Lincoln's Inn

The office of Preacher of Lincoln's Inn or Preacher to Lincoln's Inn is a clerical office in the Church of England.[2] Past incumbents include:


[edit] Gallery

This 1845 banquet in the recently built New Hall was attended by Queen Victoria.

The Hall of Lincoln's Inn, 1892, by Herbert Railton

Part of Lincoln's Inn drawn by Thomas Shepherd c.1830.[1]


[edit] Other organisations based in the Inn

68 Signal Squadron
68 Signal Squadron

68 Signal Squadron is a British Army unit of the Royal Corps of Signals. It operates out of two locations: a townhouse in Lincoln's Inn, Central London, and (some thirty kilometers away) a more barrack-style premises in Whipps Cross, Leytonstone in East London. It is attached to 71 (Yeomanry) Signal Regiment (Volunteers).

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ This illustration shows the Hall (now the Old Hall), the Chapel and Chancery Court.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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Inns of Court
Gray's Inn • Lincoln's Inn • Inner Temple • Middle Temple