Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reddie, James

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654118Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 47 — Reddie, James1896James McMullen Rigg

REDDIE, JAMES (1773–1852), legal author, born at Dysart in 1773, was educated at the High School, Edinburgh—where he was contemporary with Henry (afterwards Lord) Brougham—at the university of Edinburgh, and the college of Glasgow. He passed advocate in 1797. After giving promise of high eminence in his profession, he accepted, in 1804, the offices of town clerk, assessor of the magistrates, and presiding judge in the town court of Glasgow. These posts he retained until his death on 5 April 1852. His leisure he devoted to the study of the development of law and legal theory, of which the following works were the fruit: 1. ‘Inquiries, Elementary and Historical, on the Science of Law,’ London, 1840, 8vo. 2. ‘An Historical View of the Law of Maritime Commerce,’ London, 1841, 8vo. 3. ‘Inquiries into International Law,’ London, 1842, 8vo. 4. ‘Researches, Historical and Critical, in Maritime International Law,’ Edinburgh, 1844, 8vo.

His son, John Reddie, who died first judge of the Calcutta court of small causes on 28 Nov. 1851, was author of ‘Historical Notices of the Roman Law and of the Recent Progress of its Study in Germany,’ London, 1826, 8vo, and of ‘A Letter to the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain on the expediency of the Proposal to form a new Civil Code for England,’ London, 1828, 8vo.

Both father and son are to be distinguished from James Reddie, author of ‘Vis Inertiæ Victa’ (1862) and other pseudo-scientific tracts.

[Lord Brougham's Autobiography (1871), i. 16, 69, with his memoir of James Reddie in Law Review, November 1852, xvii. 63 seq.; Gent. Mag. 1852, i. 208; Irving's Book of Scotsmen.]

J. M. R.