Lord Wedderburn (Cassel Professor of Commercial Law, 1964-1992)

wedderburn, ill

After graduating from Cambridge, and teaching there for a number of years, Bill Wedderburn came to the LSE as the Cassel professor in 1964.  At Cambridge, he had written in the black letter tradition, but he very readily fitted into the more contextualised approach to legal education and scholarship of LSE.  His magisterial The Worker and the Law, which by the third edition ran to more than 1,000 pages, is a milestone of the disciplline.  He continued to publish in the area of labour law, and his writing included contributions with a broader European perspective.  He also made important contributions in other areas, such as company law and economic torts. For many years Wedderburn was the general editor of the Modern Law Review.  As well as his academic work, Wedderburn played an active role in politics.  He was a long-time member of the Labour Party and close to the trade union movement, which he advised over many years.  After his appointment to the House of Lords in 1977, he had a platform to continue his role in influencing public policy. Wedderburn occasionally appeared in important cases for trade union clients. In 1969 he married Frances Knight, who was a professional services member at the LSE Law Department.