And he's now offering an even more comprehensive list at: statutes.org.uk/site/collect...

Look, Statutes of the Realm is nice and all, but let's be honest, this illuminated 15th Century statute book is nicer. TNA E 164/10

The Stamp Act: statutes.org.uk/site/the-sta... The repeal: statutes.org.uk/site/the-sta... #History #LegalHistory

Any #EarlyModern folks out there who could recommend printed legal materials from England in the early 1630s, especially linked to forest law? I have a student who wants to work on this area for an undergraduate dissertation, & the go-to series I know for medieval legal sources aren't helping much.

I completely forgot I made this... a big list of English judicial records, 1500 to 1800, published and often online!

Things You MUST NOT DO In Covent Garden A look at the old market byelaws painted on boards at Covent Garden. londonist.com/london/histo... #LegalHistory #London

Also worth noting for the ‘everything is online’ crowd that the numbers of archives being destroyed means that an increasing proportion cannot ever be online.

Performing Law is now published online, Open Access, extant virtually, as vibrant and vivid as a ventriloquist in a vivarium : www.cambridge.org/core/books/p... @juliestonepeters.bsky.social

Some of the most beautiful hand-drawn diagrams i've ever seen. Turkish "Justice Gazette", 1920, artist: Cerîde-i Adliyye. Source [substack] casualarchivist.substack.com/p/poetic-jus... #türkiye #infographics #stunning

A very quick bit of research, using this table statutes.org.uk/site/collect... to see how much material from the Interregnum (1649-1660) is in the English Reports. Answer: not a lot, seemingly just vol. 82, King's Bench 11, has reports from that time.

Request for help checking website functionality! On my Alsatia site, using Wordpress, I've just published two PDFs (of 1811 debtor relief acts): alsatia.org.uk/site/statute... alsatia.org.uk/site/statute... Do they work for whatever hardware & software you're using? Thanks!

“‘Aaronson v Channel 4’ sounds real, but it’s completely made up, Koutsogiannis v Random House is a real case, but Kamal’s summary was totally wrong. And the citation number he used to refer to another real case, Riley v Murray, was a reference to an entirely different one” https://bit.ly/3OqPjII

CFP: Race, Law and Empire

#OTD in 1918: The Representation of the People Act is passed, extending the vote to men over 21 and some women over 30. statutes.org.uk/site/the-sta... #History #LegalHistory

One assumes the journalists believe every piece of law should be repealed on a yearly basis and have to go back through Parliament if people want to keep it. To avoid being archaic or arcane and suchlike

a) a century is not a long time in the context of the UK parliament and the law b) it's only a century old if you count the 1911 Parliament Act and ignore the 1949 Parliament Act which amended it c) Parliament Acts are established parts of the UK system- reporting them as "old" is a weird framing

And bibliographized here: statutes.org.uk/site/collect... #Seychelles #LegalHistory

Historians and legal scholars: please submit your articles for the Burbank Global Legal History prize! Any article published in 2025 is eligible. The deadline is June 1. I am chairing the committee this year so reach out with any questions! aslh.net/award/jane-b...

The article linked in the post below: Librarianship at the Crossroads of ICE Surveillance www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2019/ice-sur... Relx & Thompson-Reuters own LexisNexis and Westlaw, two of the largest proprietory legal databases.

Given all the news about ICE in the past few weeks, can I kindly remind you all that RELX (owners of Elsevier & LexisNexis) is "mission-critical" to ICE. ICE pays RELX Group and Thomson Reuters millions of dollars for the personal data it needs to fuel its big data policing program […]

New #OpenAccess #LegalHistory from @uolpress.bsky.social Law and Justice in the 1950s Case Studies From a Neglected Decade uolpress.co.uk/book/law-and... #History

DRAFT PROGRAM: Law and Governance - 27th British Legal History Conference (Nottingham: University of Nottingham, 1-4 JUL 2026) @uniofnottingham.bsky.social esclh.blogspot.com/2026/01/draf...

Our first book of 2026 will be #Law & #Justice in the 1950s: Case Studies From a Neglected Decade, edited by Fiona Cownie and Rosemary Auchmuty, part of our #OpenAccess Reimagining Law and Justice series published with @ials.bsky.social. Read more here: uolpress.co.uk/book/law-and... #LegalStudies

When I moved to Ireland, a colleague joked - I thought then - that Irish legislation took whatever had passed in Westminster, did find-replace "Queen" with "the State", and stuck a harp on the front. Sorry for doubting you, Fachtna.

As it was asked about on Mastodon, here's the form to get Google Books to release #PublicDomain titles: support.google.com/websearch/an... NB: Snippet view shows Google has a digital version to release. NB 2: cite relevent law, or proof that author died over 70 (in UK) years ago.

1975 a big year for statute law consolidation, with 16 Consolidation Acts en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consoli... a feat matched in 1979 but unsurpassed since, as demand for pristine texts reduced with the availability of perpetually revised digital editions

Now in the #PublicDomain, acts of the UK parliament for 1975: Vol 1: books.google.co.uk/books?id=qER... Vol 2: books.google.co.uk/books?id=EUV... Vol 3: books.google.co.uk/books?id=RUV... & added to the chronological bibliography of GB/UK statutes: statutes.org.uk/site/collect... #LegalHistory

#OTD in 1819: The Seditious Meetings Act is passed. One of the 'Six Acts' passed to suppress radical movements in the wake of Peterloo. statutes.org.uk/site/the-sta... #History

However, that section excepted the civil service. In the UK Foreign Service, the 'marriage bar' obliged women to retire upon marriage until 1973. Many countries had similar rules. They weren't relics, either - most were enacted *after* WWI or WW2, and persisted the longest in foreign services.

#OTD in 1919: the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act is passed. "A person shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage from the exercise of any public function, or from being appointed to or holding any civil or judicial office or post" statutes.org.uk/site/the-sta... #History #LegalHistory

Bizarre Legal AI grift comes a cropper. Text version: pivot-to-ai.com/2025/12/18/r...

Robin AI: a legal review AI that was humans! And it just went broke ‘Well, we’re building an AI lawyer’ www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pdP... - video pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251218-rob... - podcast time: 6 min 55 sec

I repeat: legal data is large.

I'm actually slightly mystified at how I managed to bypass the palaver, but I have this URL which is working for me without logging in to anything: edinburghuniversitypress.com/pub/media/eb...

New #OpenAccess (though it was a bit of a palaver downloading it) #LegalHistory and #WomensHistory book: Early Modern Women’s Life-Writing and English Law by Lotte Fikkers edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-early-m... #History 🗃️

1605: 3 James 1 c.1: An act for a publick thanksgiving to Almighty God every year on the fifth day of November. statutes.org.uk/site/the-sta... #LegalHistory

A very interesting piece, including this from @gwenseabourne.bsky.social "you can always tell the historians from the lawyers at a conference, because the lawyers start a paper with the argument, while the historians always start with a story" #History #LegalHistory 🗃️

“If the point is that we need to restore these human stories, why frame them within law's stories first?” Some thoughts on history, law, storytelling and Mrs Burns williamgpooley.wordpress.com/2025/11/04/h... 🗃️

'AI shows great potential to help deliver swifter, fairer, and more accessible justice for all - reducing court backlogs, increasing prison capacity and improving rehabilitation outcomes as well as victim services.' Jesus fucking christ will this dangerous nonsense never end?

Some new open access #LegalHistory: inc. some thoughts from me on medieval 'petty treason'. www.qub.ac.uk/schools/Scho...

Researching a legal moment that was supposed to change everything - whether it did or not? The call for papers for 'Moments of Rupture' is open until 23 October! Free, online conference in November, hosted by the Open Universities legal histories research cluster. #LegalHistory #cfp

Statutes.org.uk is currently having server problems, and has been up and down like the proverbial yoyo for the last few hours. Apologies for the interruption; I'm trying to find out what is going on.

Short thread answering a query about the dating of 5 Elizabeth 1 c.16, An Act Against Conjurations, Inchantments and #Witchcraft. (Text of act: statutes.org.uk/site/the-sta... ) #LegalHistory

An academic article on free legal databases has just been published by a university press. Behind a paywall. And the uni I work at doesn't have access.

New Bibliography: Royal Proclamations statutes.org.uk/site/collect... #LegalHistory

Can anyone confirm that there is no free, individual access to Hein Online's "Slavery in America and the World" collection? I had an individual account, which now doesn't work, and can't see any other way to access it without going through an instititution. #LegalHistory

We're moving our Mastodon account. As our previous provider is shutting down, we've moved to hcommons.social/@bho Gi' us a follow!

More on the Ancestry vs National Records Scotland battle: Ancestry and the NRS - when the corporate genealogy world turns ugly by @chrismpaton.bsky.social scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2025/09/ance... #Archives

This is the Ancestry vs National Records of Scotland decision. There is one mention of the Open Govt License, but opening up the records isn't really discussed. Doesn't seem to have copyright implications, but I can't claim to understand all the details.

I can't find the General Regulatory Chamber decision on this case (probably because I'm completely unfamiliar with such modern matters). Can anyone point me in the right direction? #Archives #Law #FreedomOfInformation #FOI