Regius Professor of Civil Law (Oxford) - Modern Period

Modern Period

After the death of Phillimore in 1855, the situation improved somewhat. Although the next professor, Sir Travers Twiss, held degrees in Mathematics and Literae Humaniores, he came to the post directly from three years as professor of international law at King's College, London, where the teaching of law was taken more seriously than at Oxford. His international reputation led to Leopold II, king of the Belgians asking him to draft the constitution of the Congo Free State.

Twiss was succeeded in 1870 by James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce, a distinguished historian and Liberal politician who for a period combined the Regius chair of civil law with holding office as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and who resigned the chair only in 1893, a year after joining William Ewart Gladstone's Cabinet.

In 1955, the distinguished German academic lawyer David Daube (1909–1999), a native of Freiburg im Breisgau, became the first foreign-born Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford since the 17th century. He was later a professor-in-residence at the University of California, Berkeley.

Daube was succeeded in 1971 by Tony Honoré (born 1921), a jurist known for his work on ownership, causation and Roman law, who remained in post until 1988. Although born in London, he was brought up in South Africa, fought in the Second World War and was severely wounded at the First Battle of El Alamein. His contributions to legal philosophy include sixteen books and more than a hundred articles.

In 1988, Peter Birks was appointed, holding office until his death in 2004. He was a specialist on the law of Restitution.

After a vacancy of more than a year, Professor Boudewijn Sirks was appointed in December 2005 and took up the post in 2006, his previous career having been in teaching philosophy and law at the universities of Leiden, Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Frankfurt.