born March 3, 1790, Creeting Mill, Suffolk, Eng.
died Dec. 1859, Weybridge, Surrey
British jurist.
Although initially unsuccessful in his law practice (1818–25), his analytical mind and intellectual honesty impressed colleagues, and he was named the first professor of jurisprudence at University College, London (1826). Distinguished men attended his lectures, but he failed to attract students, and he resigned his chair in 1832. His writings, especially The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832), sought to distinguish law from morality. He also helped to define jurisprudence as the analysis of fundamental legal concepts, as distinct from the criticism of legal institutions, which he called the "science of legislation." His work, largely unrecognized in his lifetime, influenced later jurists, including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.