Herbert Felix Jolowicz

Herbert Felix Jolowicz (16 July 1890 – 19 December 1954) was a British legal scholar.

Biography

Early life

Herbert Felix [H.F.] Jolowicz was born on 16 July 1890, the third of three children in the family of the silk merchant Hermann Jolowicz and his wife Marie Litthauer.^[1] His sister was the legal scholarMarguerite Wolff.^[1]

Academic career

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H.F. was educated first atSt Paul's School, London and then atTrinity College, Cambridge, where he had a classical scholarship.^[2] Very unusually, Jolowicz not only was one of just two in the first class in part one of the classicaltripos in 1911, but two years later he was one of three in the first class of part one of the law tripos.^[3]^[1]^[4] This extraordinary combination "committed him toRoman law and for the time being cut him off from almost all the more practical parts of English law."^[1]^[4] H.F. spent the rest of 1913 and part of 1914 Jolowicz in Germany studying under the highly regarded RomanistsLudwig Mitteis [de] at Leipzig andOtto Lenel at Freiburg.^[1] Jolowicz was fortunate in managing to leave Germany just three days before the start ofWorld War I. He served as an officer in theBedfordshire regiment in Gallipoli, and also saw service in Egypt, and France during that conflict.^[1]

In 1919, after the war, Jolowicz was called to the bar by the Inter Temple as a pupil ofHenry (later Lord Justice) Slesser, whose chambers he eventually joined.^[1] The next year, however, H.F. returned to academia, becoming a non-residentAll Souls reader in Roman law at Oxford.^[1] In 1924, he added to that a lectureship, which turned into a readership, in Roman law and jurisprudence atUniversity College, London.^[1] He also married Ruby Victoria (1897–1963), a research physicist, in that year.^[1] Jolowicz resigned his Oxford position in 1931 when he was appointed professor of Roman law at University College.^[1] At University College he also served several administrative functions (including Dean of the Faculty of Law), while maintaining full tutorial and lecture duties.^[3]

Directly before the outbreak ofWorld War II, Jolowicz rejoined the armed forces, this time as an intelligence officer^[1]^[4] whose duties included work related to the Enigma project.^[5]

After the war he returned to his position at University College and continued there until appointedRegius Professor of Civil Law at theUniversity of Oxford in 1948.^[4]^[1] Jolowicz was not a prolific author. Although he wrote numerous articles, Jolowicz only wrote two books:Digest XLVII.2 (De Furtis) (1940) &Historical Introduction to Roman Law (1932). However, one observer noted that, "what he wrote was both thoroughly considered and full of original ideas."^[6]^[a] Another of Jolowicz's peers,Harold Hanbury, said the publication ofHistorical Introduction to Roman Law was a "tremendous event" and ranked Jolowicz withRiccobono,de Visscher, andde Zulueta "among the greatest living Romanists".^[7]

Death

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Jolowicz died on 19 December 1954 in Oxford at the Acland Nursing Home,^[1] after apparently having recovered from a serious illness.^[8]

Published works

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"List of Publications: H.F. Jolowicz".Butterworths South African Law Review.1956:v–vii. 1956.

References

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Notes

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^After H.F.’s death a few chapters of a book about later Roman law that he was writing were published asRoman Foundations of Modern Law (1957), and his lectures were edited and published by his son J.A. asLectures on Roman Law (1963).

Citations

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^^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿODNB.
^Appreciations 1955, p. 3.
^^a ^bDuff 1956, p. 1.
^^a ^b ^c ^dAppreciations 1955.
^Dingle & Bates. The article is based on conversations with J.A. Jolowicz, H.F.’s son, who also was a professor of law. The piece contains links to the original interviews with J.A.
^van Oven 1956, p. 127.
^Hanbury 1954.
^Beinart & Price 1956, p. v. This number of the law review was dedicated to Jolowicz's memory.