Magna Carta: A Pageant Drama, Thomas Wood Stevens, 1930

Commissioned by the American Bar Association in 1928 to celebrate their 50th anniversary and highlight the importance of Magna Carta to the US Constitution, this pageant dramatized the events surrounding the sealing of the charter. One scene was set in a church of the Knights Templar at Dover, illustrating the important part their order played in the story of Magna Carta.

Engraving of Temple Church, 1816

The Round Church of the Knights Templar was an important site in the events and negotiations that led to Magna Carta. The Temple served as one of the London Headquarters of King John during the crisis of 1214-15, and it was here that he was confronted by the Barons and their demands at Epiphany 1215.

Magna Carta went on to underpin the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights in its emphasis on due process and the protection of individual rights.

Middle Templars’ Associations with America, Sir Lynden Macassey KBE, 1998

This volume, by Sir Lynden Macassey, Treasurer 1934 and Honorary member of the American Bar Association, discusses the many links between members of the Inn and the United States of America.

Admission of Benjamin Lynde, 1692

This volume, recording admissions to the Inn, details the first known member from the English colonies in America. The young man in question was Benjamin Lynde, described as the 3rd son of the merchant Samuel Lynde, ‘de Boston in Nova Anglia’.

Benjamin was born in 1666 and graduated from Harvard in 1686, before sailing for England and joining the Inn in 1692. He was Called to the Bar in 1697 and was appointed King’s Advocate in the recently-established vice-admiralty court in Boston. The unpopularity and perceived injustice of such courts would later be among the causes of the American Revolution.

He was appointed a judge in 1712 and in 1728 became Chief Justice of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. His obituary in 1745 recorded that ‘Inflexible justice, unspotted integrity, affability, and humanity were ever conspicuous in him’.

Exploration & Empire

The Inn’s American connections date back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. In 1585, the Middle Templar Sir Walter Raleigh founded the first English colonial settlement in America on Roanoke, an island off the coast of modern-day North Carolina already inhabited and governed by Indigenous peoples. Another member, Philip Amadas, commanded one of the expedition’s ships and was fined twenty shillings for his absence from the Inn. The settlement failed, but the Inn remained a centre of interest in colonial ventures.

In 1606 King James VI & I chartered the Virginia Company of London to establish a new colony, and many Middle Templars were among those involved and invested in the project. The explorer Bartholomew Gosnold, admitted to the Inn in 1593, heavily promoted the initiative, and served as Vice-Admiral of the Company’s first expedition in 1607, which established the Jamestown colony, an event which led to displacement and violence against Indigenous peoples in the region. The struggling fortunes of the colony by 1613 led Middle Templars in London to produce The Memorable Masque, a courtly entertainment with a Virginian theme, aimed at reigniting royal support.

The colony eventually turned a corner, thanks to the cultivation of tobacco on plantations which relied increasingly on the labour of enslaved men and women. The company adopted a ‘Great Charter’ in 1618, establishing a new system of government and drafted by the Middle Templar Edwin Sandys, but in 1624 King James took over the colony.

Armorial Glass of Sir Walter Raleigh

Raleigh joined the Inn in 1574, although like many was never Called to the Bar. He was granted in 1584 a charter authorising him to explore, colonise and rule territories already inhabited by Indigenous peoples, described as ‘remote, heathen and barbarous lands’, terms which reflect the prejudices and assumptions of the period.

Engraving of Richard Martin

Richard Martin was one of many Middle Templars passionately (and financially) invested in the colonial mission. He served as Counsel to the Virginia Company and co-produced The Memorable Masque of 1613.

A Map of Virginia, with a description of the countrey, the commodities, people, government and religion, Captain John Smith, 1612

This map shows the Chesapeake Bay and other geographical features, as well as details of Indigenous settlements and communities (denoted by their English names) and the recently settled English colony. It is attributed to Captain John Smith, one of the first settlers, accompanying his account of the early years.

Included is a depiction of Wahusenacawh, the paramount head of a regional confederation, known to the colonists as ‘Powhatan’. Also shown is one of the Susquehannock people of modern-day Pennsylvania, described as ’a gyant-like people and thus attired’, an exaggerated and highly inaccurate portrayal.

The map provides insight into Indigenous political and social organisation, albeit through the perspective of English colonists.

Princess Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia and Electress Palatine, Unknown artist, 1613, NPG 5529 © National Portrait Gallery

The 1613 wedding of Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King James, to Frederick, Prince Palatine of the Rhine, was the occasion for the Memorable Masque, an elaborate courtly entertainment featuring acting, dancing, music and singing staged by Middle Temple and Lincoln’s Inn, themed around colonial Virginia.

This theme reflected the preoccupations of the many Middle Templars invested in the struggling Virginia Company. The narrative was an allegory for the bounty and blessings to be gained by marrying the quest for colonial wealth with honourable motives (the imposition of Protestant Christianity and British rule) with King James as sponsor and figurehead. Contemporary accounts record that many of the performers were dressed as Indigenous Americans, in robes and headdresses designed by Inigo Jones featuring ostrich feathers and golden sunbeams - inaccurate representations which exoticised Indigenous cultures and peoples.

Elizabeth and Frederick’s great-great-great-grandson was King George III, who was on the throne when the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776.

Image © National Portrait Gallery, London

American Students at the Inn

The first Middle Temple student known to be from the English colonies in America was admitted to the Inn in 1692—one Benjamin Lynde of Boston. Over the decades to come, over 150 young men would cross the Atlantic for a legal education in London.

Their time would be spent taking part in educational exercises, as well as studying legal texts in the Inn’s library. They would also participate fully in the Inn’s collegiate life, often living in chambers and dining regularly in Hall. Here they would rub shoulders with fellow students, practising barristers and some of the leading legal figures of the day—including the great William Blackstone.

Students would also take advantage of their presence in the capital by attending the courts at Westminster Hall and observing Parliamentary debates—as well as enjoying the many cultural activities, entertainments and temptations London had to offer.

Candlelight Exercise, 1768

This records an exercise undertaken by two American students concerning a father’s obligation of maintenance under the Elizabethan Statute of Charitable Uses to his daughter, who had converted from Judaism to Christianity.

A revolutionary future lay ahead for both students. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney served as a Brigadier General in the Revolutionary War and signed the Constitution; he was a lifelong enslaver and fiercely opposed to emancipation. Thomas Heyward, also an enslaver, was one of five signatories to the Declaration of Independence who studied at the Inn.

Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson, Jane Calvert, 2024

Born in Maryland in 1732 to a slaveholding family of tobacco planters, John Dickinson travelled to London in 1753 and joined the Inn. His letters home provide a rich picture of the activities, interests and diversions of an American colonial student in London.

He practiced law and wrote profusely on colonial rights and against the imposition of taxes from London, becoming known as the ‘Penman of the Revolution’. He was a[BB3.1] leading delegate at the Continental Congresses of the 1770s, but abstained from the vote on independence in 1776. At the Constitutional Convention he was vocal in his opposition to slavery. He had in 1777 freed over fifty of the enslaved people on his Delaware plantation, first indenturing them as servants but freeing them unconditionally in 1786. His gradual approach reflects the constraints of the time.

John Dickinson on his legal studies

“I tread the walks frequented by the antient sages of the law; perhaps I study in the Chambers, where a Coke or Plowden has meditated: I am struck with Veneration… I almost seem to converse with them.”

“I have taken as much Pleasure in unravelling an intricate Point of Law as a Florist receives, When he sees some favourite flower, which he has long tended himself, at last unfold its glowing Colours, & breathe its sweet Perfumes”

“I fly to Books, to Retirement, to Labour, & every Moment is an Age, till I am immersed in Study.”

Silver cauldron salt, 1756, and two silver pepper casters, 1751 and 1762

Tableware such as this would have been a common sight in Hall during the eighteenth century. The salt was made by David Hennell of Gutter Lane and purchased in 1757. The pepper casters were made by Samuel Wood of Foster Lane and given in 1991 by Mark Emsley lee.

Middle Temple Hall, 1804

This engraving shows the Hall as it would have looked in the mid-eighteenth century. The entrance tower exhibits the contemporary enthusiasm for classical styles, with a corniced belfry and a pedimented entrance flanked by obelisks.

John Dickinson on Middle Temple Hall

“When I view the Hall, where the most important Questions have been debated, where a Hampden, and a Holt have opposed encroaching Power... in short upon whose Judgements, the Happiness of a Nation has depended, I am filled with Awe & Reverence.”

“I have enterd into Commons, that is, dining in Term time in the publick hall. We always have with us some of the… Benchers, and frequently some of the greatest lawyers.”

Edward Rutledge’s Surrender of Chambers at 6 Pump Court, 4 July 1772

Many American students took chambers in the Inn. Edward Rutledge, who went on to be the youngest signatory to the Declaration of Independence, lived at 6 Pump Court during his time here. The building still stands, well-known for a sundial dating from 1686, which would have been familiar to Rutledge.

John Dickinson on life in chambers at the Inn

“My chambers are fitted up & are very genteel… The chairs, tables, etc., are to be mahogony.”

“A laundress attends by seven in the morning, lights our fire, brings the bread, milk & butter, & puts on our tea kettle. We wait on ourselves at breakfast, which is no manner of trouble...

We then follow our studies till three or four o’clock, then we dine... we step into the coffee house, & in a little time return to our chambers for the evening.”

‘Law is a Bottomless Pit’, c1745 © The Trustees of the British Museum

Students at the Middle Temple would often attend the courts in Westminster Hall, just a short walk or boat ride along the river, to observe the law in action first hand.

This satirical print shows the Court of King’s Bench in Westminster Hall. In the foreground lawyers speak to potential clients, a woman sells oranges and a boy picks a pocket. Above, a wolf intones: “Here seems a very Gallant-Show, Prey now, Good Folks, what’s here to do…”

Image © The Trustees of the British Museum

John Dickinson on the law courts at Westminster Hall

“Here we are not always plodding over books: Westminster Hall is a school of law where we not only hear what we have read repeated, but disputed & sifted in the most learned manner… The Barr is a perfect comment upon the written law, & every great man at it is in some measure a master & instructor to students who have the wisdom to attend.”

Playing Cards

In moments of leisure between time spent studying legal tomes and attending court, students would have engaged in quiet pastimes such as playing cards. This deck is a reproduction of one from around 1750.

The Coffee-House’, After H.W. Bunbury, 1781 © The Trustees of the British Museum

Coffee houses were key centres for conversation, debate and the exchange of information, and were popular haunts for students at the Inn. The Carolina Coffee House on Birchin Lane was particularly popular with customers from the colonies, and would have been invaluable for American students seeking news of home.

Image [AK6.1]© The Trustees of the British Museum.

John Dickinson on life in London

“You will not imagine I have been a stranger at the play houses... Some actors, especially Garrick & Mrs Pritchard, are exact pictures of life…”

“As to the vicious pleasures of London, I know not what they are; I never hear [or] think of them.”

“More is learnt of mankind here in a month than can be in a year in any other part of the world.”

Revolution

British taxation of its American colonies in the 1760s led to a war of words in which members of the Inn played a key role. John Dickinson wrote his influential Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania in response to the Townshend Acts of 1767, and in London the Middle Templar MPs Edmund Burke and John Dunning were among those advocating for the colonists and their grievances.

Spurred by the ‘Intolerable Acts’ of 1774, the First Continental Congress convened, led by a Middle Templar, Peyton Randolph, and submitted a petition to the King (drafted by Dickinson). Its rejection led to the outbreak of war the following spring, and a Second Continental Congress convened in May 1775.

By the summer of 1776, the clamour for independence had grown. Congress passed a resolution on 2 July 1776 and two days later the Declaration of Independence was unanimously ratified, being signed by 56 delegates, including 5 members of the Middle Temple. John Dickinson, feeling the time was yet ripe, abstained from the vote. The war would rage on until 1783.

Mr Burke’s Speech On American Taxation, Edmund Burke, 19 April 1774

A statesman, writer and Middle Templar, Burke began his long career as an MP in 1765. A staunch advocate for conciliation with the American colonies, he appealed repeatedly for peace. In this speech, he argues that the colonies should be allowed to tax themselves, and warns of the impending conflict should the matter not be resolved.

Middle Templar Signatories

Arthur Middleton - Admitted: 1757

Middleton, a South Carolinan, was sent to England at the age of 12, studying at Cambridge and the Inn before touring Europe. Back home, he entered politics and became increasingly radical in opposition to London, serving on provincial congresses and in 1776 being elected to the Continental Congress. He was taken prisoner at Charleston in 1780, and later retired to Middleton Place, an estate and rice plantation where over 100 enslaved people were forced into labour.

Thomas McKean - Admitted: 1758

Of Irish descent, McKean was born in Pennsylvania and after his education in London practiced in Delaware, becoming an influential advocate for independence. While he was present for the crucial vote and debated the Declaration’s wording, military duty prevented his signing the document until years later. He drafted the State constitution of Delaware and later served as Pennsylvania’s Chief Justice from 1777 to 1799, thereafter serving as Governor until 1808.

Image from National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

Thomas Heyward Jr. - Admitted: 1765 - Called: 1770

While in London as a student at the Inn, Heyward experienced condescension and disdain towards American colonists. His fervent anti-British sentiment led to a resolute commitment to independence and his election to the Continental Congress in 1775. He served as a judge during the Revolutionary War and was taken prisoner at the Siege of Charleston by the British, who confiscated 130 of the people he had enslaved, leading to his proclamation as a ‘martyr’ by the press.

Image from National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

Thomas Lynch Jr. - Admitted: 1767

Following his time in London, Lynch returned to South Carolina, but gave up the law to manage his family plantation and enter politics. He served on the Provincial Congress and later the Continental Congress. Here he vehemently opposed movements to abolish slavery in the new United States, threatening the secession of South Carolina, a stance reflecting the determination of some elites to preserve slavery. He and his wife were lost at sea in 1779.

Image from The New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Edward Rutledge - Admitted: 1767 - Called: 1772

Rutledge followed his elder brothers to study at the Inn. A delegate at the Second Continental Congress, his stance on independence shifted; eventually he convinced his fellow South Carolinans to vote in favour and became the Declaration’s youngest signatory. During the war, he sought to expel Black soldiers from the revolutionary army, fearing the consequences, as an enslaver himself, of their being armed. He later served as Governor of South Carolina.

Image from the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

A View of the Constitution of the British Colonies, in North-America and the West Indies, at the time the civil war broke out on the continent of America, A. Stokes, 1783

Anthony Stokes was an Inner Templar who was appointed Chief Justice of Georgia in 1769. Described as a ‘man of integrity, courage, and ability’, his tenure was disrupted by the revolution but he was in Savannah for the Franco-American bombardment of 1779 and later sought financial compensation for his wartime experiences.

Declaration of Independence, John Trumbull, 1818

This painting of an imagined scene includes the five Middle Temple Signatories:

1: Lynch

2: Middleton

3: Heyward

4: Rutledge

5: McKean

John Laurens (1754-1782)

John Laurens was the son of a rice planter, trader in enslaved people and future Founding Father. He joined the Inn in 1772, but abandoned his studies and returned to join the revolution in 1777, serving as aide-de-camp to Washington with Hamilton and Lafayette. He fought at Charleston, Savannah and Yorktown and was killed in a skirmish with a British foraging party in 1782. He opposed slavery and promoted the emancipation of enslaved people in return for military service.

Banastre Tarleton (1754-1833)

Banastre Tarleton joined the Inn in 1770, but was never Called to the Bar. Having burned through his inheritance, he became a cavalry officer at the age of twenty-one and sailed to North America to fight against the revolutionary forces. He gained a reputation for ruthlessness and brutality, in part due to the alleged massacre of surrendering revolutionary soldiers at the Battle of Waxhaws. In later life he served as MP for Liverpool, in which capacity he energetically opposed the movement for abolition.

The Siege of Charleston

By 1780 the British had shifted their focus to the south, and they laid siege to Charleston in late March. Governor John Rutledge managed to escape, but many other Middle Templars were among those involved in the defence of the city, including Arthur Middleton, Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward Jr and John Laurens, all of whom were taken prisoners when it fell to the victorious British, whose commanders included Banastre Tarleton.

Constitution

Following the 1783 Peace of Paris, the independent states were loosely and somewhat dysfunctionally governed according to the 1776 Articles of Confederation, until the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Over half of the delegates were lawyers, seven of whom were members of the Inn: John Rutledge, John Dickinson, Charles Pinckney III, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Jared Ingersoll, John Blair and William Livingston.

Dickinson and Rutledge both played pivotal roles in resolving an early debate over voting rights between the states. Rutledge was appointed chair of the Committee of Detail, tasked with producing a first draft of the Constitution. The Committee completed its task after ten days of intensive work, thanks in part to his energy and perseverance.

The amended draft was eventually adopted and thirty-nine delegates signed the new Constitution on 17 September, among them the seven Middle Templars present. The education and experience they gained while students at the Inn can clearly be discerned in this foundational legal text, along with the influence of their deep reading and immersion in the English Common Law.

Image from the General Records of the United States Government.

Certificate of Call to the Bar of John Rutledge, 1760

The eldest of the Rutledge siblings, John was Called to the Bar at the Inn in 1760. He became a successful lawyer, was present at the Continental Congress, and later served as Governor of South Carolina. He was a pivotal figure at the Constitutional Convention, helping to resolve inter-state conflicts, playing a key role in the drafting and successfully arguing against the outlawing of slavery, helping to embed it within the foundational legal framework of the United States. He was appointed by George Washington to the Supreme Court, and later nominated (although not approved) as the first Chief Justice of the United States.

Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book the First, William Blackstone, 1766, 2nd edition

William Blackstone, a Middle Templar, first published his four-volume treatise in the 1760s - the first work systematically to synthesise and describe the English Common Law since the middle ages. It was hugely popular on both sides of the Atlantic, and a foundational influence on the Framers of the American Constitution, their second most cited authority after the Bible. His writings on individual rights, philosophical architecture, and balanced approach to the abstract and the practical were all reflected in the finished Constitution and his accessible writings are still referred to today in judgements throughout the US courts.

Edmund Burke on the popularity of Blackstone

“In no country perhaps in the world is the law so general a study… I have been told by an eminent bookseller that in no branch of his business, after tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the plantations. The colonists have now fallen into the way of printing them for their own use. I hear that they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone’s Commentaries in America as in England… This study renders men acute, inquisitive, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of resources.”

After Independence

While admissions to the Inn from the newly independent United States declined, there were some notable exceptions, including Thomas Morris Chester, the first African American to be Called to the Bar in London.

The twentieth century saw a renewal of ties between the Middle Temple and the USA. In 1905, Joseph H. Choate, US Ambassador to London, was made an Honorary Bencher, establishing a long-lived tradition. Chief Justice Taft, a former US President, was also made an Honorary Bencher in 1922, remarking to a member sitting nearby that he felt “strangely moved, finding myself sitting here in the home of Blackstone, in the very cradle of the Common Law of England and of America”.

The American Bar Association made its inaugural visit to London in 1924, a programme including a sumptuous dinner in Hall and the unveiling of a statue of William Blackstone at the Royal Courts of Justice. Over the century since, there have been several subsequent visits, marking the bonds, shared values and histories between the two legal communities.

Thomas Morris Chester (1834-1892)

Thomas Morris Chester was born in Pennsylvania, the son of Jane Morris, who had escaped from enslavement in Maryland.

During the American Civil War, he served as a recruiter of Black troops and a war correspondent. He spent time at the Tsar’s court in St Petersburg as a representative of the Liberian government before arriving in London and joining the Inn in 1867.

Called in 1870, he was the first African American to practice at the English Bar. He returned to the US to practice law in 1871.

Image from The New York Public Library.

Ticket for dinner in Middle Temple Hall, ABA visit 1924

As part of the ABA’s visit to London in 1924, the visiting lawyers were hosted by the four Inns for a dinner in Hall.

Badges from Trans-Atlantic visits, 1924 and 1930

These badges commemorate the ABA London visit of 1924 and visit to the USA and Canada by a cohort of barristers and solicitors from London in 1930.

Programme for the ABA 80th Annual Meeting, London, 1957

The ABA’s 1957 visit featured an address by the Prime Minister, river trips, sherry parties, dinners in Hall and a match between ABA members and the Bar Lawn Tennis Society at Wimbledon.

Anne Armstrong greeted by Master Treasurer, 6 May 1976

Born in New Orleans, Armstrong moved to Texas in 1950 and established herself in Republican politics. Named Counsellor to President Nixon in 1972, she made history as the first female US Ambassador to the UK, appointed in 1976. She was Called as an Honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple in the same year, and is pictured here with Master Treasurer George Baker.

Letter from Anne Armstrong following a dinner, 15 December 1976

Following her Call as an Honorary Bencher, Anne Armstrong dined at the Inn in December 1976. Also present was Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, our Royal Bencher. In this letter to the Treasurer, she expresses her gratitude and highlights how much she had enjoyed the occasion.

Early American Legal Works

Middle Temple Library’s US Collection is one of the largest collections of US legal material outside of America, providing access to textbooks, reference materials and law reports, as well as online access to US law through HeinOnline, Lexis US, LLMC Digital and Westlaw US.

The ‘American Library’ was built up extensively throughout the twentieth century, though Middle Temple’s connections with the US have long influenced the Library’s collection, which holds texts relating to America which date back to 1602. Much of this early material relates to the colonisation of America and the laws and constitutions of the colonies.

Prior to American Independence, American lawyers were largely dependent on the existing body of English common law works, including the writings of William Blackstone, Edward Coke, and Edmund Plowden. For the American students who studied at the Inn throughout the eighteenth century, a large part of their legal education would involve reading these works and it is likely that many of the books and ideas referred to in John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania were absorbed by the author while he studied at the Middle Temple between 1753 and 1757. During his time at the Middle Temple, Dickinson was an avid reader, writing to his parents in 1754 that he spent eight hours a day reading and of his respect for the writings of Coke and Plowden.

Image © Zbigniew Kotkiewicz.

Bill for books purchased from Charlotte Grafton, 1746

One of the earliest records of the Inn purchasing American legal material for the Library dates back to 1746 with a receipt for books purchased from Charlotte Grafton, a bookseller situated at the top of Middle Temple Lane in the building where Thresher & Glenny is now located. The Inn purchased volumes of laws passed in four of the thirteen British colonies: Massachusetts, New York, South Carolina and Virginia.

The Laws of the Province of South-Carolina, in Two Parts, Volume I, 1736

One of the volumes purchased from Charlotte Grafton in 1746, this text contains the charters of 1663 and 1665 issued by Charles II, granting the land of South Carolina to eight English noblemen who became known as the Lords Proprietors. Two of the Lords Proprietors were Middle Templars: Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon and Sir William Berkeley. This volume also contains an Act of Parliament surrendering the Lords Proprietors’ interests back to the crown, following a rebellion against proprietary rule in 1719. South Carolina remained under royal rule officially until the ratification of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

A number of Middle Templars who played a significant role in the revolutionary effort were born in Charleston, South Carolina, including John Laurens, of whom a posthumous portrait hangs on the stairway to the third floor of the Library where the US Collection is housed.

Reports of cases adjudged in the Superior Court of the state of Connecticut. From the year 1785, to May 1788; with some determinations in the Supreme Court of Errors, Ephraim Kirby, 1789

Over the years, the Library has acquired an extensive collection of US law reports, including the very first published, reported by Ephraim Kirby in 1789. At this time, American state courts were mostly dependent on English common law precedents, though a deviation from English laws had rendered these no longer “fully applicable” to the courts of Connecticut. With no provision for the publication of court decisions, lawyers would rely on personal notes, often circulated privately with friends, and the principles of decisions “were soon forgot, or misunderstood, or erroneously reported from memory”.

Despite the “considerable expense” of his undertaking, Kirby hoped that by publishing his Reports he might “induce government to provide for the prosecution of so necessary a work by a more able hand” and “in time produce a permanent system of common law”. Indeed, Kirby’s efforts were followed in quick succession by various independent reports, named in the English tradition after the reporter who had compiled them. By the 1820s, many US courts had made provisions for the official reporting of court decisions, including the United States Supreme Court which appointed an official reporter in 1817 for an annual salary of $1000.

The American Library

By the 1920s, a growing need for American legal decisions at the Bar prompted the Middle Temple Librarian, H.A.C. Sturgess, to begin acquiring a full set of American Reports for the Library. Many American lawyers were keen to support the project, and it is thanks to their generous contributions that the Library holds such an extensive collection of US law reports, forming the foundation of the US Collection today.

Reports of the Court of Appeals of Virginia, Volume I, Bushrod Washington, 1823, 2nd edition

In 1927, the Library received a gift of 147 volumes of reports from the State of Virginia. This volume comprises cases from 1790 to 1794, recording how the courts handled legal issues of the time, including matters involving the rights of enslaved people and Indigenous peoples. In Coleman v Dick & Pat. (1793), the court considered the legal distinction – created and enforced by a colonial legal system - between ‘American Indians’ and ‘Foreign Indians’ in determining who could be held in enslavement. The abolition of American Chattel Slavery was not ratified in the US Constitution until 1865, almost a century after the Declaration of Independence.

Contributions from American Lawyers

One especially prolific donor to the Library was Barnett Hollander, an American lawyer based in 3 Paper Buildings, who encouraged others in the American legal community to contribute to Sturgess’ project:

“Both Mr. Sturgess and the writer seem to have formed the ambition that a complete library of American Reports was highly desirable in England… it is hard to believe that none of the four Inns and in fact the British Museum did not have a full set of the United States Supreme Court Reports until I came to England about three years ago and filled the gap.”

A succession of gifts followed throughout the 1920s and 1930s, including a first edition of Williston on Contracts from Clarence M. Lewis in 1929. Another significant contribution came from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1929, comprising of $7000 of US law reports and books, roughly equivalent to over $130,000 in today’s money!

Significant Supreme Court Opinions of the Honorable Warren E. Burger, 1984

Donations to the US Collection continued after the Second World War, including gifts of 550 volumes from the US Government in 1954 and a volume of Supreme Court opinions from Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, inscribed with the message:

“To the Middle Temple Library from Warren E Burger P.S. American doctors recommend five minutes reading before bedtime as a sure cure for insomnia.”

Burger was Called as an Honorary Bencher of the Inn in 1971 and played an instrumental role in the establishment of the American Inns of Court. In 1988 he signed a 'Declaration to commemorate and celebrate the perpetual friendship and brotherhood' between the London and American Inns, and even wore his Middle Temple cufflinks when he sat for his official portrait in 1976.

In 1973, Burger became the Honorary President of the Foundation for Overseas Libraries of American Law, an initiative which ran from 1969 to 1982 to support the libraries at Middle Temple and the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies with the hopes that it would permit English lawyers and judges to cite American precedents more freely in English courts.

The US Collection Today

Today, the US Collection constitutes one of the Library’s specialist subjects, jointly funded by the four Inns of Court. With the majority of US case law and legislation available immediately online, the Collection has expanded to provide comprehensive electronic coverage of federal and state case law, legislation and secondary resources, including the entirety of West’s National Reporter system, Restatements of the Law and the United States Code Annotated.

The Library continues to develop its physical collection of US practitioner textbooks to aid those wishing to draw on persuasive US authorities or undertake comparative or international legal work.

Hover over the image to compare the third floor of the library in 1958 and 2026.

US legal material is housed on the third floor of the Library, along with the Rutledge Suite of advocacy rooms, formally opened by the US Ambassador Louis Susman in September 2011 during an Amity Visit from the American Inns of Court. Each room is lined with volumes of state and federal US law reports, and regularly used by the Inn for advocacy training, Call days, moots, Qualifying Sessions and scholarship interviews.

Since 2010, the Library has formally offered US legal research training to members, which has evolved into one of the Inn’s regular Qualifying Sessions provided to student members before they are Called to the Bar.

For more information about the US Collection, a library guide is available with information about resources and US legal research. To coincide with this exhibition, a number of books relating to US law and the Declaration of Independence can also be borrowed for a four-week loan. Please ask at the Enquiry Desk for further details.

21st Century Amity

The Inn’s long-standing links with the United States endure today in many forms. We continue to mark important historical anniversaries, and the Library’s US Collection remains one of the largest collections of US law in Europe.

The Inn regularly welcomes visitors and delegations from the United States, and recently hosted an ABA conference in London marking 100 years since the 1924 visit. Middle Templars also often cross the Atlantic for Amity Visits, mooting competitions and more.

Master Mark Rylance’s comments in the programme notes for his 2006 performance at the quatercentenary of the Virginia Charter conclude: “Long live the friendship between America and the Middle Temple… may that friendship continue to be a force for liberty, justice and good government between all people.” We look forward to the next 250 years.

Middle Temple visits to the United States, 2011-2025

Recent years have seen many official excursions by Middle Templars to the US, on Amity Visits, mooting trips and more.

Guide, ABA International Law Section Conference, 2024 Fall

The centenary of the 1924 ABA visit was marked by a return trip to London in 2024. Hosted by Middle Temple and Inner Temple, the programme featured lectures, panels, social events and a service of Choral Evensong in Temple Church.

Cybersecurity Law, 2nd Edition, Jeff Kosseff, 2020

The Library continues to collect US practitioner textbooks and treatises on the third floor. Many new titles focus on evolving areas such as AI, cyber security, FinTech, and environmental law.

Programme and script for An Utopian Entertainment to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first Jamestown Charter, 2006

The anniversary of the first Virginia Charter in 1606 was marked by a performance in Hall by Phoebus Cart Theatre Company, led by Master Mark Rylance. The entertainment included dramatic interludes, as well as a masque, The Marriage of Pocahontas, which drew on sources such as The Memorable Masque of 1613.

Soil from Jamestown

In recognition of the Inn’s participation in the celebrations of the Virginia Company’s quatercentenary, in 2006 this jar of soil from Jamestown Island was presented to the Inn’s Archivist by Curt and Mary Reinhardt of Virginia.

Judge Robert L. Wilkins delivers his Treasurer’s Lecture

In June 2025, Judge Robert L Wilkins, a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was invited to deliver a Treasurer’s Lecture at the Inn. A descendant of enslaved people, he spoke on ’My family’s journey from slavery to Citizen’. Judge Wilkins was made an Honorary Bencher of the Inn the day before his lecture.