Appendix, Inns of Court and Chancery.

Many of the members belonged to several classes or interests, and have been enumerated in each, which swells the nominal number of individuals. It is apparent that the vast majority were connected with the Peerage, the Army, Navy, Courts of Law, Public Offices, and Colonies; and, in lieu of representing the People, only represented those interests over which it is the constitutional object of a real House of Commons to exercise a watchful and efficient control.

In our chapter on Corporations we might have properly included a short notice of the present state of the Inns of Court. They form incorporated foundations, originally intended for the study of the law and advancement of legal science; and grew out of the violent contests between the clergy and laity respecting the introduction of the civil law into this country, the former being anxious to make it the law of the land, and the latter, with equal pertinacity, insisting on being governed by the municipal or common law. As the clergy had the control of the universities, the professors of the common law were excluded from them, and constrained to establish an university for themselves. This they did by purchasing, at various times, certain houses and lands between the city of Westminster, the place of holding the king’s courts, and the city of London, for advantage of ready access to the one, and plenty of provisions in the other.—Chit. Bl. C. 18. Here they naturally fell into collegiate order—exercises were performed, lectures read, and other immunities of the regular universities assumed. After being established some time, the crown took them under protection; and more effectually to encourage them, Henry III. issued an order, directed to the mayor and sheriffs of London, prohibiting law to be taught any where else in the metropolis, except by these bodies. He also formed the members of each inn or lodging house into a corporation, and established rules for their regulation. The societies, feeling their importance, began to exercise the privilege of bestowing rank upon their students of a certain standing, and conferred the degrees of barrister and serjeant, corresponding to those of bachelor and doctor in the universities.

From Dugdale and Stow it appears James I. made a grant by letters patent of the premises of the middle and inner temple to the benchers of both societies, to have and to hold the same mansions, gardens, and appurtenances, &c. to themselves, their heirs and assigns for ever, for lodging, reception, and education of the professors and students of the laws of the realm, yielding and paying to the same king, &c. the sum of £10 a year for each of the temples. That a similar grant for the same purpose was made of Gray’s Inn, by Henry VIII. for a rent of £6 : 13 : 4; that the fee simple of Lincoln’s Inn was conveyed to the benchers of that society, for the same object, in the reign of Elizabeth; that the fee simple of Clements Inn and Lyons Inn is vested in the society of the Inner Temple; that of the New Inn, in the Society of the Middle Temple; that of Barnard’s Inn and Staple’s Inn, in the society of Gray’s Inn; that Thavie’s Inn and Furnival’s Inn belonged to the Society of Lincoln’s Inn. The latter was sold by that society a few years ago. Such is a brief outline of the origin and objects of the inns of court and of chancery. To enter more minutely into the history of these societies would be foreign to our purpose; our object in stating the foregoing facts is to shew that these institutions were founded for the purpose of promoting legal knowledge; that the different estates above enumerated were conferred on the societies for the advancement of that object; that the mode prescribed for carrying it into effect was by giving public instructions in the different inns, and that such instructions were actually given at the period when those estates were granted to the benchers. It is unnecessary to state that the benchers have ever since been in the reception of the profits of these estates, and that no legal instructions have for a long time been given in the inns of court, or any measures adopted to direct the application of those who may feel disposed to study. At the Inner Temple the exercises are compounded for by the payment of money. In the Middle Temple the form is observed, but with no real utility. These inns, with Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn, are the only societies the members whereof are called to the bar. Admission to the inns of chancery, which are Barnard’s Inn, Staple’s Inn, Furnival’s Inn, Lyon’s Inn, Thavies’ Inn, Clement’s Inn, Clifford’s Inn, and New Inn, would now be of no avail in obtaining a call to the bar.

Two reasons may be assigned for the decline of the inns of court as seminaries of legal instruction. First, the more eminent of the profession find it more advantageous to aspire to the receipt of the profitable fees in the courts of law, the possession of rich legal sinecures, and the higher offices of state, than to devote themselves to the teaching the principles of judicial knowledge. The second reason we consider to be that assigned by a writer in the Legal Examiner—namely, the irresponsible character of the benchers, who, not being accountable for the revenues at their disposal, feel no disposition to part with them, nor listen to improvements which might disturb the exercise of their authority. They also possess irresponsible power in conferring the degree of barrister, and may even refuse to admit any person a student in the inns of court, and cannot be compelled to assign reasons for such refusal (King’s Bench, M.T. 1825): thus possessing authority arbitrarily to exclude any individual from the most seductive department of the profession.

From the known character of many of the Benchers, it is a subject of surprise the defective administration of the inns of court has so long escaped notice; it can only have arisen from that esprit de corp which usually renders individuals averse from any proceeding which savours of a betrayal of their own cast; and, if they be of a reforming spirit, induces them to apply to objects foreign or extraneous to their fraternity. In the list of benchers of Lincoln’s Inn we find the distinguished name of Henry Brougham, synonymous with universal hostility to abuses. There is also sir Thomas Denman, the ex-officio prosecutor of malversation and violated trusts by incorporated bodies. There is also the celebrated Jeremy Bentham, who has devoted a long life to the task of legal improvement, not only in this but most other countries. Those eminent individuals, we doubt not, are wholly guiltless of participation in the mal-administration of their brethren; perhaps there are few subjects with which they are so little acquainted. The government of the inns of court, we suspect, like that of the city companies and most corporations, has fallen into the hands of a few intriguers, or of those who have no higher or more lucrative objects of ambition. But this is no justification of the specific abuses of the law establishments. The benchers are self-elected bodies, accountable to no superior, consisting of about one hundred and twenty individuals, in the receipt, it has been calculated, of £60,000 a year, granted to them in trust to promote legal knowledge, yet not one shilling of these revenues do they expend in forwarding that object. This is quite as bad as the Gresham lectures in the city; it is a state of things that ought not to pass uninvestigated: every student, we apprehend, who is entered of the inns of court, is a shareholder in the funds of the society to which he belongs, and may rightfully demand that they shall be administered in the advancement of these ends for which they were originally granted.

Some years ago sir James Scarlett had a project on foot for raising the scholastic and other qualifications of aspirants to the bar. Should this design still be entertained, an improvement in the institutions of the inns of court, and the administration of the revenues, might be rendered auxiliary to the proposed undertaking. If it be true, that out of one thousand and fifty-four barristers there are only twenty capable of filling the situation of puisne judge, it is high time some change was introduced, both for the advantage of the community and legal students. With such a limited number of individuals qualified for judicial appointments, the choice of Ministers is restricted, and the salaries of the judges maintained at a monopoly standard.