Jennings, Ivor, Sir, 1903-1965

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Sir (William) Ivor Jennings, constitutional lawyer and educationalist, was born in Bristol on 16 May 1903 and died in Cambridge on 19 December 1965. Educated at Queen Elizabeth's Hospital, Bristol Grammar School and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, he had already begun a university career before he was called to the bar in 1928. His first academic appointment was as lecturer in law at Leeds University in 1925-1929, following which he taught at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he was first lecturer, (1929-1930) and then reader in English Law (1930-1940). His publications in this period included works on the poor law code, housing law, public health law, town and country planning law and laws relating to local government. He also wrote on constitutional matters in The Law and the Constitution (1933), Cabinet Government (1936) and Parliament (1939). Appointed principal of University College, Ceylon in 1940, he was its first Vice-Chancellor (1942-1955) when it became the University of Ceylon. He described his life there in Road to Peradeniya, an unpublished autobiography (ref: C/14); see also Jennings' The Kandy Road (ed. H.A.I. Goonetileke, University of Peradeniya, 1993). He was frequently consulted on constitutional, educational and other matters and was Chairman of the Ceylon Social Services Commission (1944-1946), a member of the Commission on University Education in Malaya (1947), a member of the Commission on the Ceylon Constitution (1948), President of the Inter-University Board of India (1949-1950), Constitutional Adviser and Chief Draughtsman, Pakistan (1954-1955), a member of the Malayan Constitutional Commission (1956-1957), and Chairman of the Royal University of Malta Commission. He was also Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia, in 1938-1939 and Visiting Professor, Australian National University in 1950. As the colonial period ended, he became particularly interested in the Commonwealth and the newly independent nations and was valued as a commentator on the subject. He delivered the 1948-1949 Wayneflete lectures at Magdelen College, Oxford on `The Commonwealth in Asia', the 1950 George Judah Cohen Memorial Lecture at the University of Sydney on `The Commonwealth of Nations', the 1957 Montague Burton lecture on International Relations at the University of Leeds on `Nationalism, Colonialism and Neutralism' and a series on `Problems of the New Commonwealth' at the Commonwealth Studies Center (now closed) at Duke University, South Carolina, USA in 1958. He re-published an earlier work on laws of the empire as Constitutional Laws of the Commonwealth (3ed. 1956) and published The Approach to Self-Government (1956) and works on Ceylon and Pakistan. In 1954 he became Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge and Downing Professor of the Laws of England in 1962, holding both posts until his death. In later life he returned to his study of the British constitution, with the publication of Party Politics (1960-62). He was knighted in 1948, made a QC in 1949, and awarded the KBE in 1955.

From the guide to the JENNINGS, Sir (William) Ivor (1903-1965), 1928-1965, (Institute of Commonwealth Studies)

Archival Resources
Role Title Holding Repository
referencedIn Karl Loewenstein Papers, 1822-1977, 1908-1973 Amherst College Archives and Special Collections
creatorOf JENNINGS, Sir (William) Ivor (1903-1965), 1928-1965 Institute of Commonwealth Studies
Role Title Holding Repository
Relation Name
associatedWith Loewenstein, Karl, 1891-1973 person
associatedWith University of Ceylon corporateBody
associatedWith University of Malta corporateBody
Place Name Admin Code Country
Ceylon
Maldives
Nigeria
Cyprus
Ghana
Jamaica
Zimbabwe
Japan
Malaysia
Gibraltar
Gambia
Kuwait
Canada
China
South Africa
Sri Lanka
Rhodesia
Australia
Hong Kong
Asia and the Pacific
Eritrea
Pakistan
Singapore
Nepal
Sudan
Uganda
Malta
Subject
Constitutional law
Educational levels
Education, Higher
Higher education institution
International law
Law
Legal education
Legal history
Legal systems
Public law
Universities
Vocational education
Occupation
Activity

Person

Birth 1903-05-16

Death 1965-12-19

Britons

English

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