George Sharswood

George Sharswood (July 7, 1810 – May 28, 1883) was a Pennsylvania jurist and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. He was also the Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

George Sharswood
portrait by John Neagle
Born7 July 1810 Edit this on Wikidata
Died28 May 1883 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 72)

Biography

Sharswood was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 7, 1810. He graduated with honors from the University of Pennsylvania in 1828. On September 5, 1831, he was admitted to the bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

He served as a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1837, and was a district judge in Pennsylvania from 1845 to 1867.

In 1850, he became a Professor of Law at and reorganized the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he served for 18 years.[1] He was Dean of the Law School from 1852 to 1868.[2] He was senior professor of law there until 1867, when he resigned his chair.

In 1851, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.[3]

During his tenure he was a respected author, editor and commentator.[4] In 1859, then Professor George Sharswood published through Childs and Peterson in Philadelphia a two-volume edition of Blackstone's Commentaries which weeded and gleaned the notes and commentaries of the prior English editors and added a treasure trove of new notes and observations on the application or divergence of the various sections of the Commentaries in America from the founding of the country to the Civil War, collecting American cases and references to Kent's Commentaries to illustrate his observations. This effort continued in subsequent editions after he became an Associate Justice, at least through the publication of an 1872 edition by Lippincott & Co. in 1872.[5]

He was appointed to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 1868, and was named Chief Justice in the court in 1879. He retired in 1882.[1]

Death and interment

Sharswood died on May 28, 1883, and was buried in Philadelphia's Laurel Hill Cemetery, Section R, Plots L501 & 503.[6]

Sources

References
  1. Faculty: Fellowships • Penn Law
  2. Brief Histories of the Schools of the University of Pennsylvania Law School | University Archives and Records Center
  3. "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2021-04-14.
  4. "Review: Blackstone's Commentaries (Sharswood Ed. 1859)". 90 (187). The North American Review. April 1860: 550–552. JSTOR 25107628. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. Sharswood, Associate Justice George (1872). Blackstone's Commentaries. Philadelphia: Lippincott & Co.
  6. The Political Graveyard
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