Commissioner Kerr: An Individuality

Pitt-Lewis, G. Commissioner Kerr: An Individuality. With Two Portraits. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1903. Frontispiece. Illustrated. ix, 395 pp. Black textured cloth with gilt stamped spine, worn, joints split but stable. Spine chipped at head and tail. Ex-library "The Law Society London" property stamp to front free endpapers, title pages, and preface. Otherwise internally clean. A good copy. $25. * A biography and legal history charting the colorful career and stark judicial temperament of Robert Malcolm Kerr, who served as a prominent judge and Commissioner of the City of London Court for over four decades. Written by a contemporary King's Counsel, the text combines professional analysis with personal anecdotes to reconcile Kerr's dual public personas, examining both his severe, idiosyncratic reputation on the bench and his private benevolence. The work serves as a valuable primary source for studying the late Victorian English judiciary, the internal administration of municipal London courts, and the evolution of municipal civil procedure at the turn of the century.