University of Virginia Library

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LAW DEPARTMENT.

[Prepared by John B. Minor, Jr., B. L., (1890).]

A School of Law was one of the departments originally contemplated in the
foundation of the University, and provision was made for it by the selection of a
professor. Mr. Francis Walker Gilmer, the first Professor of Law, was thrice
offered the position at the instance of Mr. Jefferson, who had a very high opinion
of his ability, before he consented to accept it, but died in 1825, before he could
enter upon his duties; thus it came about that when the University opened its
doors to students on the 7th March, 1825, the chair of Law was vacant.

The following year, however, Mr. John Tayloe Lomax was elected to fill the
vacancy, and the session of 1826-'27 opened with a Law School in full operation.
Mr. Lomax occupied the chair for four years, resigning in 1830 to accept a circuit
judgeship, having brought the School up to the number of twenty-six. As a
writer Judge Lomax is known to all and his name is a household word with every
student of the Law of Real Property.

Mr. John A. G. Davis succeeded Judge Lomax in 1830, and devoted himself with
such untiring zeal and energy to the work he had undertaken that in five years
the School had increased to sixty-seven students. When he died, in 1840, after ten
years of enthusiastic and able work, his School numbered seventy-five.

Mr. Nathaniel P. Howard was elected to fill the vacancy caused by the death of
Mr. Davis, but only held the chair one session, 1840-'41, when he was succeeded
by the Hon. H. St. George Tucker, who had then been President of the Court of
Appeals of Virginia for ten years. Judge Tucker's name and reputation are too
well known to require comment, and it need only be added that ill-health obliged
him to resign in 1845, after four years' service.

Mr. John B. Minor was then elected to succeed Judge Tucker, and entered upon
his duties in the fall of 1845. He had sole charge of the Law Department, as all
had who preceded him, until 1851, when it was thought advisable to appoint an
adjunct professor to assist him. Mr. James P. Holcombe was selected to fill this
position, to whom was assigned the subjects of Equity and Commercial Law, in
order that they might be taught more extensively than had up to that time been
practicable. In 1854 Mr. Holcombe was made full professor and assigned to the
separate School of "Civil, Constitutional and International Law, Equity and the
Law Merchant," Mr. Minor retaining the subjects of Evidence and Common and
Statute Law. This position Mr. Holcombe continued to hold until 1861, when he
resigned to become a member of the "Secession Convention" of Virginia.

The session of 1860-'61 was the most prosperous the Law School or the Univerversity
had yet known, the number of students of law being one hundred and
thirty-five. After Mr. Holcombe's resignation Mr. Minor resumed charge of the
whole department, which he conducted alone during the four years of the war
and until Mr. Stephen O. Southall was elected, in 1866, to take Mr. Holcombe's
place. Soon after Mr. Southall's appointment a new designation was given to the
School over which he presided—viz.: "The School of Constitutional and International
Law, Mercantile Law, Evidence and Equity"—which name it now bears,
while Mr. Minor had charge of the "School of Common and Statute Law." Mr.
Southall held this position until his death, in 1884, when he was succeeded by Mr.
James H. Gilmore, the present incumbent. During the four years of the war,
from 1861-'65, there were only a few students at the University, but the Law
School remained open the whole time. Since 1865 there has been a gradual but
steady increase in the numbers of the Law Department, until in 1889-'90 one
hundred and fifty-two names were on the roll, thirty-nine of whom graduated
with the degree of B. L.

Such is a brief sketch of the history of the Law Department of the University
of Virginia.