Musings and Silences of Chief Justice William Osgoode: Digest Marginalia about the Reception of Imperial Law

Abstract

This essay focuses on musings and silences in the margins of Canadian Chief Justice William Osgoode's late-eighteenth-century law library, to understand the role he assigned to Westminster-based imperial law in the transmission of 'British justice' to the colonies. It concludes that role was limited, mostly by Osgoode's greater commitment of time and energy to legislative and executive branches of government than to the judiciary, and by his sometimes cavalier impatience with English courts and legal commentators.

Keywords: Canadian Legal History, History of Books, British Colonial State Structure, and Colonial Reception of Imperial Laws

JEL Classification: B00, B31, B41, B49, K00, K10, K190, N4, N400