Reports of Cases in Equity

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Reports of Cases in Equity: Argued and Decreed in the Courts of Chancery and Exchequer, Chiefly in the Reign of King George I ... to which are Added Some Select Cases in Equity, Heard and Determined in the Court of Exchequer in Ireland

by Geoffrey Gilbert

Reports of Cases in Equity
GilbertReports1742.jpg

Title page from Reports of Cases in Equity, George Wythe Collection, Wolf Law Library, College of William & Mary.

Author Geoffrey Gilbert
Editor {{{editor}}}
Translator {{{trans}}}
Published [London] In the Savoy: Printed by H. Lintot (assignee of Edward Sayer, esq;) for D. Browne and J. Shuckburgh
Date 1742
Edition Second
Language English
Volumes {{{set}}} volume set
Pages [8], 275, [20] p.
Desc. (35 cm.)
Location [[Shelf {{{shelf}}}]]
  [[Shelf {{{shelf2}}}]]

Sir Geoffrey (sometimes Jeffray or Jeffrey) Gilbert (1674–1726) is probably better known to legal history for his treatises rather than his case reports. Gilbert joined the bar in 1698 and became judge of the Court of King's Bench in Ireland then Chief Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland in 1715.[1] In 1722, after resigning his office in Ireland, Gilbert was appointed baron of the English Court of Exchequer. His case reports were published anonymously and posthumously but Gilbert's contemporaries had no doubt of the author, "That the Reports of Cases in Equity came out of [Gilbert's] study is most certain."[2] At least one more recent author contends that the attribution may be misplaced, "Reports of Cases in Equity … by a Late Learned Judge (1734) include some of Gilbert's draft judgments, but also some reports which cannot be by him."[3]

Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library

Wythe definitely owned this title—a copy at the University of Virginia includes his bookplate and an inscription on the inside front board, Given by Thos. Jefferson to D. Carr, 1806. Not surprisingly, it is also listed in the Jefferson Inventory of Wythe's Library as Gilbert’s reports., given by Thomas Jefferson to Dabney Carr. Three of the Wythe Collection sources (Dean's Memo[4], Brown's Bibliography[5] and George Wythe's Library[6] on LibraryThing) list Gilbert's Reports.

Description of the Wolf Law Library's copy

View this book in William & Mary's online catalog.

External Links

Google Books

References

  1. William Holdsworth, A History of English Law, (London: Methuen & Co., Sweet and Maxwell, 1938), 12:140.
  2. Charles Viner, A General Abridgment of Law and Equity: Alphabetically Digested under Proper Titles with Notes and References to the Whole, (Aldershot: Printed for the Author, by Agreement with the Law-Patentees, 1741-1753), 18:Preface.
  3. M. Macnair, "Gilbert, Sir Jeffray (1674–1726)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 7 Sept 2013. (Subscription required for access.)
  4. Memorandum from Barbara C. Dean, Colonial Williamsburg Found., to Mrs. Stiverson, Colonial Williamsburg Found. (June 16, 1975), 7 (on file at Wolf Law Library, College of William & Mary).
  5. Bennie Brown, "The Library of George Wythe of Williamsburg and Richmond," (unpublished manuscript, May, 2012) Microsoft Word file. Earlier edition available at: https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/13433
  6. LibraryThing, s. v. "Member: George Wythe," accessed on June 28, 2013, http://www.librarything.com/profile/GeorgeWythe