InBrief

Legal history

Members are reminded that the next Forbes legal history tutorial will be delivered by Professor Mark Lunney, on "History of the law of tort" on Tuesday, 19 June 2018, at 5.15pm in Banco Court. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Reminder about supporting research projects supported by the Forbes Society

One of the Society’s objects is to encourage and promote research into Australian legal history and it maintains a fund for that purpose to which donations may be made – the Francis Forbes Fund (donations of $2.00 or more are tax deductible). Members will recall that last year the Council of the Forbes Society approved a grant from the Fund to the University of Sydney to support the project of Professor Anne Twomey to publish of Pitt Cobbett's grand opus called ‘The Government of Australia’. We are pleased to share this update from Professor Twomey:

Professor Pitt Cobbett wrote his grand opus on The Government of Australia in his retirement, leaving it as an 'unfinished symphony' upon his death in 1919, with a request to his executors that it be finished, edited and published. But the High Court handed down its judgment in the Engineers Case the following year, and the executors decided the manuscript was out of date. It was instead donated to the University of Sydney and has sat quietly moulding there ever since. It is now a work of great historic importance, showing how the Constitution was understood in the first twenty years of its existence.

The Forbes Society has kindly supported the project of finishing, editing and publishing this work. The aim is to publish it upon the centenary of Pitt Cobbett's death, in 2019. The Society donated $8300 to pay a PhD student to check the footnotes of the book and to help subsidise publication to make it viable. Unfortunately, the full $8300 was spent on the footnote checking, as it turned out that as Pitt Cobbett's illness increased, the accuracy of his footnotes decreased and considerable work had to be undertaken to find the correct sources. I am therefore hoping for some additional assistance from the Society later in the year to subsidise publication so that it can be published as a hardback book for libraries and scholars to consult for generations. The support of the Society is essential for this type of work, which would otherwise not see the light of day and remain moulding away, unseen and forgotten. We will not learn from our past unless our history is readily accessible. The Francis Forbes Society ensures that it is.

The Society welcomes further donations to enable us to support such worthy projects – a form for donations is available here: Forbes Fund Donation Form and on the web site under DONATIONS