| Description | Minutes of the Faculty of Law Board and of Faculty of Law and Department of Legal Studies committees which reported to the Faculty of Law Board; records of the Deans of the Faculty of Law, largely consisting of correspondence and administrative papers; papers relating to the history of the Faculty of Law, gathered by members of staff in the Faculty in preparation for publications to mark the fiftieth and sixtieth anniversaries of the Faculty; and Faculty of Law publications consisting of incomplete series of regulations and syllabuses, information pamphlets, copies of sixtieth anniversary history of the Faculty of Law, and a small number of miscellaneous publications.
Records of the Faculty of Law Board cover the entire period that the Faculty existed 1928-1998. Records of Faculty of Law committees include minutes of the Advisory Board of Legal Studies which advised the Department of Legal Studies from 1923, when law was first taught at the University of Birmingham. Records of other Faculty of Law committees consist of incomplete series of minutes of the Faculty of Law Resources Commitee 1987-1997 and incomplete series of minutes of the Faculty of Law Library Committee 1954-1969.
Records of the Deans of the Faculty of Law cover the period 1928-1984. Papers relating to the history of the Faculty of Law cover the period 1935-1988, the Faculty of Law regulations and syllabus cover the period 1923-1943 and 1976-1977 for postgraduate degree regulations, the information pamphlets are dated 1975-1986, the published history of the Faculty of Law was produced for the Faculty's sixtieth anniversary in 1988, and other publications of the Faculty of Law cover the period 1956-1980s
Minutes of the Faculty of Law Board, minutes of the Advisory Board of Legal Studies and, to a lesser extent because of their very limited survival, minutes of the Faculty committees, are a significant source for the development of the Department of Legal Studies into the Faculty of Law and its continued development over the course of the twentieth century. The Faculty remained a small one and was not departmentalised. Even in the 1990s internal divisions consisted only of the School of Law, the Institute of Judicial Administration, and the Institute of European Law. Records of the departmental society, the Holdsworth Club, are arranged separately from those of the Faculty (see UA35, not yet catalogued).
Faculty of Law minutes are supplemented by the Dean's records, particularly the correspondence of Charles Smalley Baker which is a rich resource for the study of the Faculty and its students and alumni during the 1930s and 1940s in particular, but also the later administrative papers of Owen Hood Phillips and later Deans in the 1970s and 1980s. The papers relating to the history of the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Law publications provide further insight into the experiences of students and staff from the 1920s to the 1980s |
| Administrative History | The University of Birmingham did not teach law before 1923 except for certain courses in Industrial Law and Commercial Law in the Faculty of Commerce in connection with the B.Com degree. These were taught by Frank Tillyard who had been appointed Lecturer in Commercial Law in 1904 and was promoted to Professor in 1914. The Birmingham Law Society, through their Board of Legal Studies, provided professional instruction for their articled clerks by means of lectures held at their premises and had begun offering these in 1882. When the Solicitors Act 1922 was passed which required the attendance of articled clerks for a year's course of legal education at an approved law school, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham approached the Birmingham Law Society's Board, and with their co-operation and financial support it was decided to establish in the University a Department of Legal Studies which would be an 'approved law school' under the Act.
The Department of Legal Studies began teaching in October 1923 with a Reader and a part-time lecturer, under the direction of Frank Tillyard of the Faculty of Commerce who had taught law courses in that Faculty. In November 1923 the University received a benefaction from Sir Henry Barber to endow a Professorial Chair, and in March 1924 Charles Smalley Baker was appointed to be the first Barber Professor of Law and Director of Legal Studies to start in September 1924. The intention was to create a centre of legal education which should, in addition to providing instruction in the purely professional subjects, fulfil all the functions of a University Law School.
The first students admitted to the Department of Legal Studies were preparing for the Intermediate and Final and Honours Examinations of the Law Society, as well as the external LLB of the University of London. Smalley Baker developed the curriculum for the Birmingham LLB, offered from October 1925, and conferred in the Faculty of Arts until a separate Faculty of Law was established in 1928. A postgraduate Master of Laws was also introduced in 1928. The tendency among early law students at the University of Birmingham, even those studying for degrees, was to attend University only for their lectures and classes or to work in the library. There was no dedicated organisation for Law students until 1928 when the Faculty of Law society was founded, named the Holdsworth Club, to provide a forum for discussions and debates, to give an opportunity for students and staff to establish a community, and to foster relationships between past and present students. It was named for Sir William Holdsworth who was a friend and former tutor of Smalley Baker and was honorary Doctor of Laws at Birmingham and an external examiner to the Faculty. Lady Barber, wife of Sir Henry Barber, was first President of the Club, and she continued to give gifts to both the Club and Faculty. A second professorial chair was established by a settlement of Lady Barber in December 1932, and a Professor of Jurisprudence was appointed in 1935.
The Faculty structure was set out in the University Statutes and Ordinances. The Dean of the Faculty of Law was appointed by members of the Faculty, for three years. The Dean was a member of the Senate and chaired the Faculty Board. Other members of the Faculty and Faculty Board were the Vice-Chancellor and Principal; the Vice-Principal and later Pro-Vice-Chancellors; the Deputy Dean or Executive Dean when that post was established; the University Librarian; all Professors and all those holding posts of professorial status in the Faculty; all non-professorial Heads of Schools and Departments in the Faculty; representative staff members; representative student members; and attached members
Faculty Boards were responsible under the Senate for organising, regulating and directing the academic work within the Faculty in teaching, examining and research. They reported to Senate but also to the Committee of Principals and Deans. The Faculty Boards had powers to make recommendations concerning programmes of study within the Faculty; to make recommendations on the appointment of External Examiners in the Faculty; to make recommendations for the necessary Ordinances and Regulations and to make special Regulations and Rules concerning Degrees, Diplomas, Prizes, examinations and assessment and concerning the results and other matters pertaining to the Faculty; to transact any other academic business pertaining to the Faculty; and to take into consideration any matter bearing upon the work and development of the Faculty
Faculty Boards could delegate business to committees appointed to report to the Faculty Board, and several number of committees were set up to deal with specific Faculty of Law business, though records of most of these have not survived.
The Faculty of Law remained small during the 1920s and 1930s and was dominated by its Dean, Charles Smalley Baker. He was skilled in raising funds for the Faculty and in exploiting the academic reputation and financial generosity of his friends for its benefit. In addition to gifts from Sir Henry and Lady Barber, the Faculty and Holdsworth Club also benefitted from donations from Baron Profumo in the 1930s, including an ad hoc scholarship, gifts for the purchase of books and additions to the Holdsworth Club's silver. Local solicitors also established scholarships. Smalley Baker took a genuine and personal interest in all students, during and after their studies, and continued to write to them, often years after their graduation. The Holdsworth Club and its annual dinners provided a link between the Faculty's students and staff and the legal profession, given that Club presidents were chosen each year from senior lawyers and judges, and encouraged students to regard their studies as professional training.The Holdsworth Club also held weekly debates, discussions, and lectures. The Second World War depleted student and staff numbers and remaining staff took on additional Civil Defence duties. Students called up for military service took shortened courses and were awarded degrees under War Regulations. Holdsworth Club dinners were not held during the war and were only revived in 1945. Smalley Baker resigned in 1949 and was replaced as Dean and Director of Legal Studies by Owen Hood Phillips, and the Faculty of Law began to expand in the 1950s and 1960s, due to increased government funding and growing numbers of students attending university. Growth of students in the Faculty of Law outpaced that of the University as a whole, particularly as a result of the termination of the Law Society's Statutory year scheme under which articled clerks attended the Faculty on a part-time basis each year. The end of this scheme increased the important of full time degree study as a route into the profession and led to the appointment of additional teaching staff. Teaching remained at the University's Edmund Street site until the 1960, when the Faculty was accommodated in a series of temporary huts until the Law building, previously used by Biological Sciences, was made available in 1965.
The LLB syllabus was broadened in the 1960s, and the Institute of Judicial Administration was established in 1968. Unlike other, larger Faculties, the Faculty of Law was never divided into departments despite regular discussions. Joint degree programmes were introduced in the 1970s, in Law with French in 1976 and Law and Politics in 1977. The Law with French degree led to the establishment of a link with the University of Limoges and an informal exchange programme. The degree of Law and Business Studies was introduced in 1987. The Faculty also offered postgraduate law courses for students wanting to become solicitors or barristers in England and Wales.
The Faculty structure was abolished at the end of the 1997-1998 academic session and the academic Schools and Departments were given responsibility for their own activities. In 2009 the University was re-organised into five academic Colleges, each of which consisted of a number of Schools and Departments |
| Custodial History | Faculty of Law records were transferred to Special Collections in 1989-1990 as part of a project to gather and sort the university's institutional archives, with subsequent transfers of later records. |