Institute of Advanced Legal Studies - History

History

The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies was established in 1947 in response to recommendations made in 1932 by Lord Atkin that the United Kingdom needed an institution “which would be a headquarters for academic research and would promote the advancement of knowledge of the law in the most general terms”. On the 11th June 1948, the Institute was officially opened by the Lord Chancellor, William Jowitt, 1st Earl Jowitt as an Institute of the University of London. The first director was Professor Sir David Hughes Parry, a distinguished Professor of English Law at the London School of Economics and for many years Vice-Chancellor of the University of London. The Librarian, K Howard Drake also acted as administrative secretary for the Institute.

Housed at 25 Russell Square, the Institute occupied all floors of the building, the ground and first floors reserved for the library with rooms on the second and third converted into offices or study/seminar rooms. The library held 11,000 books in its first year, a substantial number donated by Dr Charles Huberich. An internal telephone system connected all the rooms with a hand book lift installed to move books from floor to floor."

By 1949, the Institute was running out of space and were given permission to extend into the basement and ground floor 26 Russell Square. Here it remained until 1976 when the Institute moved into No. 17 Russell Square, part of the newly built Charles Clore House designed by Sir Denys Lasdun. At the official opening on 1st April 1976, the then Chancellor of the University of London, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother over stayed and her official schedule had to be abandoned.

In 1994 the IALS became one of the member institutes of the School of Advanced Study.

The Institute is currently in the process of a five-year building refurbishment, the first phase of which was completed in September 2012, incorporates a larger café and improved lecture facilities on the ground floor.