BLACKSTONE, SIR WILLIAM

born July 10, 1723, London, Eng. died Feb. 14, 1780, Wallingford, Oxfordshire English jurist who was the author of Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vol. (176569), the best known description of the doctrines of English law. The work became the basis of university legal education in England and North America. He was knighted in 1770. Additional reading James Clitherow, preface to Reports of Cases Determined in the Several Courts of Westminster-Hall from 1746 to 1779, Taken and Compiled by Sir W. Blackstone, 2 vol. (1781), the basic account of Blackstone's life, written by his brother-in-law; William S. Holdsworth, A History of English Law, vol. 12 (1938), a full account of Blackstone's career and an assessment of the Commentaries; Harold G. Hanbury, The Vinerian Chair and Legal Education (1958), contains chapters on Blackstone, the Commentaries, and minor works; W.R. Ward, Georgian Oxford: University Politics in the Eighteenth Century (1958), gives an account of Blackstone's part in Oxford politics; for references to Blackstone's constitutional ideas, see B. Kemp, King and Commons, 16601832 (1957).