Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Court of King's Bench (Salkeld)

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Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Court of King's Bench: with Some Special Cases in the Courts of Chancery, Common Pleas and Exchequer, from the first year of K. William and Q. Mary, to the tenth year of Queen Anne

by William Salkeld

Salkeld's Reports
SalkeldReportsofCases1717-18v2.jpg

Title page from Salkeld's Reports, volume two, George Wythe Collection, Wolf Law Library, College of William & Mary.

Author William Salkeld
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Translator {{{trans}}}
Published London: In the Savoy: J. Walthoe and J. Walthoe, jun.
Date 1717-1718
Edition {{{edition}}}
Language English
Volumes 2 volume set
Pages {{{pages}}}
Desc. Folio (33 cm.)
Location [[Shelf {{{shelf}}}]]
  [[Shelf {{{shelf2}}}]]

William Salkeld (1671-1715), serjeant at law and law reporter, led a short, but productive life.[1] He matriculated at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford in 1687 and entered the Middle Temple in 1692.[2] In 1698 he was called to bar. [3] He married Mary Ryves in 1700 and settled in Dorset.[4] In 1715, He became serjeant at law in 1715 and was appointed chief justice of the great sessions for the counties of Carmarthen, Cardigan, and Pembroke.[5] Salkeld died later that year.[6]

Salkeld was well known for his reports.[7] His Reports of Cases in the Court of King’s Bench, published after his death, became “the standard work of the period.”[8] The first two volumes are of “undoubted accuracy” and were published under the guidance of Lord Hardwicke.[9] However, the third volume is not highly regarded and is more of a “refuse collection of cases,” containing the material Salkeld considered “unworthy of publication.”[10]

Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library

Both Dean's Memo[11] and the Brown Bibliography[12] suggest Wythe owned the first edition of Salkeld's Reports based on notes in the commonplace book of John Marshall.[13] Dean also cites Thomas Jefferson's commonplace book.[14] The Wolf Law Library followed the suggestion of Brown and Dean and purchased a copy of the first edition.

Description of the Wolf Law Library's copy

Bound in contemporary calf. Spines feature raised banks and a red morocco label to volume two. Label missing from volume one.

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

References

  1. W.R. Williams, “Salkeld, William (b. 1671, d. 1715)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004- ), accessed February 21, 2014.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Ibid.
  4. Ibid.
  5. Ibid.
  6. Ibid.
  7. Ibid.
  8. Ibid.
  9. J.G. Marvin, Legal Bibliography (Philadelphia: T. & J.W. Johnson Law Booksellers, 1847), 626-627.
  10. Ibid.
  11. Memorandum from Barbara C. Dean, Colonial Williamsburg Found., to Mrs. Stiverson, Colonial Williamsburg Found. (June 16, 1975), 9 (on file at Wolf Law Library, College of William & Mary).
  12. 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
  13. The Papers of John Marshall, eds. Herbert A. Johnson, Charles T. Cullen, and Nancy G. Harris (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, in association with the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1974), 1:44.
  14. The Commonplace Book of Thomas Jefferson: A Repertory of His Ideas on Government, ed. Gilbert Chinard (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1926), 75.