AUS U-Adelaide’s Wilfrid Prest on Sir William Blackstone & Anglo-American Common Law

In this episode of The Learning Curve, co-hosts U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng and Ret. MN Justice Barry Anderson speak with Wilfrid Prest, Emeritus Professor and Visiting Research Fellow in History and Law at the University of Adelaide in Australia, and biographer of Sir William Blackstone, among the most influential figures in the history of English common law. Prof. Prest discusses Blackstone’s formative years in mid-18th-century London and at Pembroke College, Oxford, where a classical education, Enlightenment thought, and legal scholarship shaped his intellectual path. He describes Blackstone’s early legal and academic career, including his role as the first Vinerian Professor of English Law and author of An Analysis of the Laws of England. Prest explores how Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England brought clarity and coherence to England’s centuries old legal tradition, drawing from foundational documents like Magna Carta and formative figures such as Bracton, Fortescue, and Coke. He examines the Commentaries’ lasting impact on American Founding Fathers, including both admirers like Alexander Hamilton and Chief Justice John Marshall and critics like Thomas Jefferson. Prest concludes with reflections on Blackstone’s enduring legacy in promoting the rule of law and legal education worldwide. In closing, Prof. Prest reads a passage from his book, William Blackstone: Law and Letters in the Eighteenth Century.