George Joseph Bell (1770–1843): ostatni szkocki pisarz instytucjonalny

Abstract

The subject of the article is the figure of George Joseph Bell — professor of Scottish law at the University of Edinburgh and author of two final Scottish institutional works: Principles of the Law of Scotland and Commentaries on the Law of Scotland and on the Principles of Mercantile Jurisprudence. The publication of both works in the first half of the nineteenth century marks a unique caesura in the history of Scottish law — both the level of complexity of the legal system and the significant convergence of Scottish law and solutions known to English law resulted in a lack of both need and opportunity for a comprehensive treatment of the Scottish law system in the form of a holistic legal treatise. G.J. Bell’s unfulfilled dream of becoming a judge of the Court of Session enabled him to refine his monograph on insolvency law to the level of just such a treatise, which consequently acquired the status of an institutional work and secured for the author a place in the history of Scottish law which is not given to every judge of even the highest of courts.