The Bristol Bar – from the 13th to the 21st century by Christopher Sharp KC
Fifty years ago the Bristol Bar was around 50 strong. There were two main chambers. By 1980 the Bar was over 60 and in the words of Anthony Harwood in ‘Circuit Ghosts’ (1980) had ‘overspilled its traditional location in Albion Chambers’.1 To-day, even excluding sets from outside the city who have established bases here, there are around 320 barristers, with over a dozen silks, and Bristol is the pre-eminent legal centre for civil, commercial and criminal business on the Western Circuit.
Although there had been a general eyre covering most of the south-western counties from the West Midlands into the South West, and under which civil and criminal cases were tried in Bristol, as early as 1221, it was not until 1373 that Edward III granted Bristol its charter and the city became a county in its own right. From then until the nineteenth century civil and criminal cases were administered through a number of Bristol courts, the profits from which accrued to the Corporation.2
From the early 13th century litigants were allowed to be represented in court proceedings and before long local practitioners began to represent clients on circuit. Evidently barristers did practise from a base in Bristol. Nathaniel Wade, a Bristolian, was barrister of the Middle Temple, defending non-conformists in Bristol. He was a supporter of Monmouth during the rebellion of 1685 and, despite his history, by 1710 was a steward in the Sherriff’s Court in Bristol.3 In 1712 William Goldstone described the scene at thecourts at Bridewell:
Here Legal Officers in Trains resort
And humming Noises fill the busy Court.
Here fine-mouth'd Students of the Knotty Law
Sharp poinant Tongues for verbal Combat draw.4
We know that at least as early as 1725 barristers were practising specifically from Bristol when Michael Foster (later Sir Michael) is recorded as having moved there. He became Recorder of Bristol in 1735 and a High Court judge in 1745.5 In 1800 the New Law List records Western Circuit barristers practising from Bristol. Albion Chambers is first mentioned in 1831 and a barrister, Samuel Carter, is listed as practising from Brandon Chambers at 14, Charlotte Street.6
When provincial counsel took silk, they were required to move to London but by 1971 that rule had lapsed and when Peter Fallon (later the Honorary Recorder of Bristol) took silk in 1971 he remained at Guildhall Chambers, while Paul Chadd QC also remained practising in Bristol.7 They were the first two silks practising specifically from Bristol but to support a silk practice it was necessary to practice largely in crime until Stephen Wildblood and Christopher Sharp took silk in 1999 as the first specialist non-criminal silks.
The increase in crime and in litigation generally, which led to reforms which in turn resulted in the Courts Act of 1971, caused a sea change in the provincial bar which had been growing for some time but now saw an acceleration in that growth. In the early 1960s there had only been 14 or 15 barristers practising in Bristol.8 Ten years later that number had trebled. Whereas Albion chambers had traditionally been the home of the Bristol Bar a group of barristers broke off and formed Guildhall Chambers in 1971 and others formed Tailor’s Court. Then another group broke away from Guildhall Chambers in 1978 to form St John’s Chambers. In 1974 there had been an abortive attempt to establish a civil set called Queen’s Chambers and there was a belief that there was no room for a further set, and indeed an applicant for pupillage to Albion Chambers that year was told by Kit Rawlings, then head of chambers, that unless there was an outbreak of the Black Death there was no room for further barristers in Bristol. Happily, Guildhall Chambers took a different view and granted that applicant a pupillage. Subsequently the successful growth of St John’s, Assize Court Chambers (which evolved over time from Taylor’s Court Chambers, led by the inimitable Michael Vyvyan-Jones, and ultimately became Unity Street Chambers) and Queen Square Chambers (which evolved through various iterations, including All Saints Chambers) proved this negative assessment wrong. Meanwhile a number of chambers from outside Bristol saw the strength of the market and established annexes so that now there are branches of chambers such as 3PB, No 5, Enterprise, and Old Square Chambers in addition to the strong local offering.
Increasingly specialisms were developing among those practising at the Bristol Bar. In the 1970s William Huntley (the first head of chambers at St John’s) had developed a specialist planning practice which he carried on until his death in his eighties (in the 1980s), and Richard Mawer at Guildhall had developed a Family Law specialism while other specialisms developed across the whole spectrum of the law. Solicitors who found the demands of partnership interfering with the practice of law increasingly saw a move to the Bar as an opportunity to develop their particular specialist practices. And so it was that increasingly the local Bar was able to meet the increasingly complex needs of a clientele which, as Bristol grew and its financial and commercial character exploded in the latter part of the twentieth century, was becoming increasingly exacting, discerning and sophisticated.
In 1919 the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act allowed women to become practising solicitors and barristers in an official capacity, and to join the Law Society and the Inns of Court. On 10th May 1922 Ivy Williams was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple and in November Helena Normanton was called by the Middle Temple.9 In 1923 the Western Circuit, ahead of some other circuits, after some considerable debate voted (by 27 votes to 20) to admit women members and Miss B.H. Davy was elected. In 1931 she left the Bar to become a solicitor.10 Hazel Counsell (later a circuit judge) and who was called in 1956 was the first woman member of the Bristol Bar. By 1975 there were some four women members of the Bristol Bar (albeit some more female pupils) and in the country as a whole only two female High Court judges one of whom (Rose Heilbron J) had only been appointed in 1974. Today of the 320 barristers in Bristol just over a half are women.
An increasingly professional attitude to training both during pupillage and in terms of continuing education, from the 1980s onwards led in turn to the development of specialisation and niche areas of practice, so that to-day the Bristol Bar serves nearly all areas of the law with a degree of skill and specialist knowledge that renders any referral to London quite unnecessary. The Bristol Bar continues to thrive and to grow in both numbers and stature with no indication that this will change.
1 Anthony Harwood, Circuit Ghosts (1980), p.219
2 John Lye, Bristol’s Courts of Law (2006) Bristol Branch of The Historical Association which provides a full history of the many mediaeval courts from the Hundred Court referred to as early as 1188 to the Court of Pie Poudre, and the Tolzey Court which survived until the Courts Act 1971. The last hearing took place before Sir Joseph Malony QC, the Recorder of Bristol, on 3 December 1971 when it dealt with a claim for the cost of repairs to the roof of a house in Westbury-on-Trym.
3 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
4 Bristol’s Courts of Law, p.28
5 Circuit Ghosts, pp.2, 29, 43.
6 Circuit Ghosts, p.212
7 Who’s Who (A&C Black, 2000) p.655.
8 Recollections of the Western Circuit, Francis Yeatman (published by the Western Circuit, 2000) p.66.
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