A. W. B. Simpson
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Alfred William Brian Simpson, QC (Hon.), JP, FBA (17 August 1931 – 10 January 2011) usually referred to as Brian Simpson and publishing as A. W. Brian Simpson, was a British legal historian and legal philosopher. At the time of his retirement, he was Charles F. and Edith J. Clyne Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School.


Biography

Born in
Kendal Kendal, once Kirkby in Kendal or Kirkby Kendal, is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Westmorland and Furness, England. It lies within the River Kent's dale, from which its name is derived, just outside the boundary of t ...
,
Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...
, Simpson was the son of the Rev Canon Bernard W. Simpson and Mary Simpson. His interest in law began when he was young, as he describes attending a murder trial in Leeds when he was a boy. Simpson was educated at Lancing House in
Lowestoft Lowestoft ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk (district), East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . As the List of extreme points of the United Kingdom, most easterly UK se ...
, Oakham School and The Queen's College, Oxford on a closed scholarship, where he took a First in Law, the best first of his year. He registered for a doctorate in 1954, but never completed it. After a year as a junior research fellow at
St Edmund Hall, Oxford St Edmund Hall (also known as The Hall and Teddy Hall) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. The college claims to be "the oldest surviving academic society to house and educate undergraduates in any university" and was the las ...
, he became a fellow and tutor in Law at
Lincoln College, Oxford Lincoln College (formally, The College of the Blessed Mary and All Saints, Lincoln) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Lincoln was founded in 1427 by Richard Flemin ...
, from 1955 to 1973. He was a member of H. L. A. Hart's informal discussion group on jurisprudence, a subject he became associated with as a result. However, diffidence precluded him publishing on the subject until the end of his life. Increasingly unhappy in Oxford, Simpson began to look further afield. As a result of National Service with the Nigeria Regiment, he retained an interest in Africa, and was Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Ghana in 1968–69. In 1975, he left Oxford to join the
University of Kent The University of Kent (formerly the University of Kent at Canterbury, abbreviated as UKC) is a Collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom. The university was granted its roya ...
as Professor of Law, where he remained until 1983. He joined the
University of Chicago Law School The University of Chicago Law School is the Law school in the United States, law school of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It employs more than 180 full-time and part-time facul ...
as Professor of Law in 1984, and the University of Michigan Law School in 1986, where he remained until retirement. He also held visiting professorships at
Dalhousie University Dalhousie University (commonly known as Dal) is a large public research university in Nova Scotia, Canada, with three campuses in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax, a fourth in Bible Hill, Nova Scotia, Bible Hill, and a second medical school campus ...
(1964), the University of Chicago (1979, 1980, 1982, 1984), the University of Michigan (1985), the
University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
(Arthur Goodhart Visiting Professor in Legal Science, 1993–94) and the
University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...
(2009). In the 1970s, Simpson was a member of the Heilbron Committee on the law of rape and the Williams Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship. In 1976 Simpson was awarded a DCL by Oxford; he received honorary degrees from the University of Ghana (Hon. DLitt, 1993), Dalhousie University (Hon. LLD, 2003) and the University of Kent (Hon LLD, 2003). He was elected
Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (post-nominal letters FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in t ...
in 1983 and of the American Academy of Arts and Science in 1993. In 1995 he was elected an honorary fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, and he was appointed an honorary Queen's Counsel in 2001.


Scholarship

A leading historian of the common law, Simpson pioneered the study of 'leading cases' which he thought "deserved the fullest possible study in their historical context". He became so identified with this approach that this type of scholarship became known as 'doing a Simpson' in some circles. According to Simpson, the idea for this approach came to him in 1979 when he was lying in a bath and realized that ''
Rylands v Fletcher ''Rylands v Fletcher'' (1868) LR 3 HL 330 is a leading decision by the Judicial functions of the House of Lords, House of Lords which established a new area of English tort law. It established the rule that one's non-natural use of their land, w ...
'', the case which developed strict liability, was the result of a serious reservoir failure. His famous book, ''Cannibalism and the Common Law'' (1984), adopts this approach to study the Victorian ''cause célèbre'' '' R v Dudley and Stephens'' (1884). The book sold well and was reprinted by
Penguin Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a sm ...
, though its impact on academic law was limited because he did not explicitly articulate a theory linked to the narrative. Many of his articles on 'leading cases' were collected in ''Leading Cases in Common Law'' (1995). Toward the end of his career, he turned his attention toward the history of human rights in the twentieth century, though he had no special training in international law. He wrote ''In the Highest Degree Odious: Detention without Trial in Wartime Britain'' (1992) and ''Human Rights and the End of Empire: Britain and the Genesis of the European Convention'' (2001). His work as a legal historian also led him into the debate concerning
law and economics Law and economics, or economic analysis of law, is the application of microeconomic theory to the analysis of law. The field emerged in the United States during the early 1960s, primarily from the work of scholars from the Chicago school of econ ...
, an approach he first encouraged at Chicago and Michigan and toward which he was sceptical. In 1996, he became involved in a debate with
Ronald Coase Ronald Harry Coase (; 29 December 1910 – 2 September 2013) was a British economist and author. Coase was educated at the London School of Economics, where he was a member of the faculty until 1951. He was the Clifton R. Musser Professor of Eco ...
over the latter's handling of Victorian case law, particularly '' Sturges v Bridgman'', in his seminal article "The Problem of Social Cost". Coase was dismissive of Simpson's criticism, which was followed by a riposte by Simpson. Simpson returned to an aspect of his own legal education at Oxford in a book published posthumously in September, 2011, ''Reflections on `The Concept of Law, delineating the environment in which H. L. A. Hart had produced the classic of jurisprudence in the setting of Oxford linguistic philosophy.


Selected bibliography

* ''Introduction to the History of the Land Law, 1961'', new edition as * (ed.) ''Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence'', 2nd Series, 1973 * ''A History of the Common Law of Contract'', 1975 * ''Pornography and Politics'', 1983 * * * ''Legal Theory and Legal History: Essays on the Common Law'', 1987 * ''Invitation to Law'', 1988 (trans. Chinese 2008) * * ''Leading Cases in the Common Law'', 1995 * *


References


External links

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Simpson, A. W. B. 1931 births 2011 deaths People educated at Oakham School People from Sandwich, Kent British legal historians University of Michigan Law School faculty English legal scholars Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of Lincoln College, Oxford Academic staff of the University of Ghana Academics of the University of Kent Legal scholars of the University of Oxford English King's Counsel Honorary King's Counsel University of Chicago Law School faculty Fellows of St Edmund Hall, Oxford Academics of the University of Cambridge English justices of the peace Members of Gray's Inn