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The Grand Experiment: Law and Legal Culture in British Settler Societies
2008 
edited by Hamar Foster, Professor of Law, University of Victoria, Andrew Buck, Professor of Law, Australian Catholic University, Queensland, and Ben Berger, Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School. Published with the University of British Columbia Press, 2008.
In recent years Canadian legal historians have shown an increasing interest in imperial themes and the comparative legal history of British colonies, and this book reflects that turn to comparing ourselves with other settler colonies. It examines the legal cultures of British colonies or former colonies in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and covers such topics as dower, prohibition, libel law, and the clash of colonial and indigenous legal regimes. The volume is rich in empirical detail, and ends with a reflection on the state and future of the discipline by Professor John P.S. McLaren.
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Contents
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations / IX
Foreword / X
Acknowledgments / IX
Introduction: Does Law Matter? The New Colonial Legal History / I
Benjamin L. Berger, Hamar Foster, and A.R. Buck
Part 1: Authority at the Boundaries of Europe
1 Libel and the Colonial Administration of Justice in Upper Canada
and New South Wales, c. 1825-30 / 15
Barry Wright
2 The Limits of Despotic Government at Sea / 38
Bruce Kercher
3 One Chief, Two Chiefs, Red Chiefs, Blue Chiefs: Newcomer
Perspectives on Indigenous Leadership in Rupert’s Land and the
North-West Territories / 55
Janna Promislow
4 Rhetoric, Reason, and the Rule of Law in Early Colonial New
South Wales / 78
Ian Holloway, Simon Bronitt, and John Williams
5 Sometimes Persuasive Authority: Dominion Case Law and
English Judges, 1895-1970 / 101
Jeremy Finn
Part 2: Courts and Judges in the Colonies
6 Courts, Communities, and Communication:
The Nova Scotia Supreme Court on Circuit, 1816-50 / 117
Jim Phillips and Philip Girard
7 Fame and Infamy: Two Men of the Law in Colonial New Zealand / 135
David V. Williams
8 Moving in an “Eccentric Orbit”: The Independence of Judge
Algernon Sidney Montagu in Van Diemen’s Land, 1833-47 / 156
Stefan Petrow
9 “Not in Keeping with the Traditions of the Cariboo Courts”:
Courts and Community Identity in Northeastern British Columbia,
1920-50 / 176
Jonathan Swainger
Part 3: Property, Politics, and Petitions in Colonial Law
10 Starkie’s Adventures in North America: The Emergence of Libel Law / 195
Lyndsay M. Campbell
11 The Law of Dower in New South Wales and the United States:
A Study in Comparative Legal History / 208
A.R. Buck and Nancy E. Wright
12 Contesting Prohibition and the Constitution in 1850s New
Brunswick / 221
Greg Marquis
13 From Humble Prayers to Legal Demands: The Cowichan Petition
of 1909 and the British Columbia Indian Land Question / 240
Hamar Foster and Benjamin L. Berger
Afterword: Looking from the Past into the Future / 268
John McLaren
Notes / 277
Selected Bibliography / 352
Contributors / 377
Index / 380
Reviews
[This] is a collection of essays on a hugely ambitious topic, an attempt to measure the impact of British law upon the colonial societies around the world where it was implanted. Old imperial histories would have seen this process as an unmitigated blessing. The authors here promise a rather more nuanced view. Christopher Moore, Law Times, 15 October 2008
This work belongs in every Canadian academic library, and certainly in every Canadian law library. Michael Lines, Canadian Law Library Review, vol 35, 2010
Mariana Valverde, Canadian Journal of Law and Society, Vol 42, 2009, pp. 285-287.
