| dc.contributor.author | Girard, Philip Vincent. | en_US |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2014-10-21T12:38:31Z | |
| dc.date.available | 1998 | |
| dc.date.issued | 1998 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.other | AAINQ36582 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10222/55594 | |
| dc.description | The role of lawyers in British North American society became much more important in the 1820s and 1830s than it had been in the early period of settlement. Understanding this role has been hampered by a dearth of empirical work on the functions and day-to-day activities of the "average" lawyer, who attained neither high political office nor the bench. The professional and public life of Halifax lawyer Beamish Murdoch (1800--1876) is examined, principally in the pre-1850 period, with this goal in mind. Three themes are stressed: the lawyer as professional, the lawyer as intellectual leader and cultural figure, and the lawyer as economic actor. Murdoch's apprenticeship and professional life are examined in the period 1814--1850 against a backdrop of significant change within the profession. A detailed reconstruction of Murdoch's legal practice in terms of clientele, income, types of legal services rendered and organization of work sheds light on the making of a colonial lawyer. | en_US |
| dc.description | Murdoch's extensive writings on legal and non-legal themes, and his contributions to political and community life, illustrate the many leadership roles he sought, with varying degrees of success. His example suggests that the leadership roles of lawyers were closely intertwined with their professional success, and required that they be visible and active members of their communities. Particular attention is devoted to two areas in which Murdoch sought to exercise cultural or political leadership: the attempt of this "patriot jurist" to articulate a provincial identity through the analysis of Nova Scotia law and legal culture which he provided in his Epitome of the Laws of Nova-Scotia (1832--33); and his principled resistance to the coming of responsible government. | en_US |
| dc.description | Lawyers are considered as economic actors by examining the growth and dispersal of the provincial bar during the crucial decades 1820--1840, when the number of lawyers in Nova Scotia tripled as the population doubled. The fact that the vast majority of lawyers were able to remain professionally active for a significant portion of their lives suggests that their services were increasingly in demand as economic activity in the province took on more complex forms. As lawyers penetrated rural society, they became unwitting agents of modernization as they gradually undermined the authority of the local magnates who sat on the county bench. | en_US |
| dc.description | To judge from Murdoch's example, British North American lawyers were neither the rapacious vultures depicted in some contemporary anti-lawyer literature, nor the saints portrayed in some professional biographies. The "clean," independent and intellectual nature of their work made them early exemplars of middle-class status, while the demands of securing a clientele forced them to become actively involved in the political, social and economic development of their societies. | en_US |
| dc.description | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 1998. | en_US |
| dc.language | eng | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Dalhousie University | en_US |
| dc.publisher | | en_US |
| dc.subject | Biography. | en_US |
| dc.subject | History, Canadian. | en_US |
| dc.subject | Law. | en_US |
| dc.title | Patriot jurist: Beamish Murdoch of Halifax, 1800-1876. | en_US |
| dc.type | text | en_US |
| dc.contributor.degree | Ph.D. | en_US |
