Centenary History of the UWA Law School: call for submissions

Emeritus Professor Frank Beasley arrived at UWA on 1 November 1927 with the select purpose of becoming the Foundation Professor of the nation’s fifth law school. The Faculty of Law met for the first time later that month and the first classes commenced the following year in March 1928.

As part of the Law School’s centenary celebrations, Emeritus Professor Peter Handford is writing the Centenary History of the Law School, to be published in early 2028, and is in the process of collecting photographs for consideration.

The cataloguing of 100 years of a prestigious Law School is a considerable task, so Professor Handford is seeking help from the Law School community to unearth the treasures of the past. Photographs can be submitting to Professor Handford for consideration using this online form. A description and the names of those in the photo should be included if possible.

More news about the History will feature in the upcoming issues of the UWA Law School Obiter Dicta newsletter. You can subscribe to receive Obiter Dicta by emailing [email protected].

Meanwhile, here are a few glimpses of the Law School in its early days, as supplied by Professor Handford:

• The Law School was very small. Professor Beasley was the only full-time staff member.
• The LLB was a four-year degree. The first two years consisted mainly of Arts subjects, together with Constitutional Law, Legal History and Roman Law. In the last two years, students completed another eight law subjects.
• Professor Beasley himself taught six different subjects. The other five subjects were taught by lawyers in practice.
• 67 men and 14 women graduated between 1930 and 1942, when Professor Beasley (who served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front in the First World War) was asked to return to the army, and so the Law School had to close for two years.
• The Law School occupied two rooms in the Hackett Buildings near Winthrop Hall. One room was used as the Law Library.
• Male students had to wear jackets and ties, and all students had to wear academic gowns.
• The Blackstone Society was founded in 1928, and organised social occasions such as the 1929 Law Students Ball (pictured). The invitation was entitled ‘Mandatory Injunction’, issued in the Terpsichore Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court by ‘CUO Bay, Master’.

 

Graduates from this period included:

• Enid Russell BA '27, LLB '30 (historian of the law in WA and early Law School staff member)
• Sheila McClemans and Molly Kingston (who formed the first all-female law firm, McClemans becoming the first woman to appear as counsel in the Supreme Court)
• Professor Joseph Starke KC BA '31, LLB '32 (the Law School’s first Rhodes Scholar, distinguished international law professor and text author)
• Ralph Honner LLB '33 (commander of the battalion that repelled the Japanese advance on the Kokoda Track)
• Sir Gordon Freeth LLB '36 (minister in the Menzies government)
• Hon Gresley Clarkson AM KC LLB '37 (one of the first to join the WA bar, then a judge in PNG, returning to the Law School in the 1970s to teach Practice and Procedure)
• Sir Francis Burt AC KC LLB '40, LLM '48, LLD '87 (founder of the WA bar, Chief Justice and State Governor).

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Emeritus Professor Peter Handford

Peter Handford taught at the Law School from 1977 onwards, becoming a Professor in 2004. On retirement in 2016, he was made an Emeritus Professor.