Trade’s Empire: Commercial Law beyond Westminster Hall in the 18th Century by Hunter Harris (Oxford University)
- Date: Tuesday 3 March 2026, 14:00 – 15:00
- Location: Liberty Building SR (G.32)
- Cost: Free
Join The Centre for Business Law and Practice for a visiting Professor Seminar: Trade’s Empire: Commercial Law beyond Westminster Hall in the 18th Century by Hunter Harris (Oxford University).
Abstract
In this talk, I argue for the importance of commercial law in structuring trade and the elaboration of empire in the eighteenth-century British world. While conventional legal histories focus on the work of Lord Mansfield and other jurists in London’s central courts, I show that doctrines, processes, and remedies critical for the intensification of trade were established not just in the central courts but also in Parliament and on the imperial periphery. To do so, I draw on evidence from three port cities in drastically different regions: New York, Glasgow, and Calcutta/Kolkata. Despite the patchwork of jurisdictions and myriad legal systems in force across the British Empire, merchants could rely on an imperial legal infrastructure. Law, in one form or another, was accessible nearly everywhere by the end of the eighteenth century. Commercial actors proved adept at using the empire’s legal infrastructure for their own advantage and fashioned increasingly capital-friendly rules around the British Empire.
About the speaker
Dr Hunter Harris is a historian of the British Empire in the eighteenth century, with interests in legal and economic history. He was previously Departmental Lecturer in Global and Imperial History at the University of Oxford and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. His first book, Trade’s Empire: Merchants, Law, and the British Empire, is under contract with the Omohundro Institute and University of North Carolina Press, and his work has appeared in the American Journal of Legal History, The William & Marty Quarterly, and Slavery & Abolition.
This event will be of interest to those interested in UK commercial and arbitration law.
This is a free event. Attendance is limited due to room capacity. To register, please click here.