AUSTIN, Jonx (1790-18591. The most dis tinguished of English writers on jurisprudence.
lie was born at Creeting Mill, in Suffolk, Eng land, on Slareh 3, 1790. At the age of 16 he entered the army and served as a subaltern in Sicily and elsewhere for five years. Resigning his commission, he returned to London and took up the study of law', and in 1818 was called to the bar. In 1820 he married :11 iss Sarah Taylor, of Norwich, a gifted woman, to whose devotion, courage, and steadiness of purpose he was in debted for the few but remarkable achievements of his life. In the same year he went to live in Westminster and was a welcome member of the circle to which belonged Jeremy Bentham and :lames and John Stuart and many others of the foremost minds and characters in England. But his great social and conversational gifts did not bring him success at the bar, a natural in firmity of will and deficiency of courage being aggravated by weakness of constitution and fre quent attacks of fever and debility. Accordingly, he retired from practice in 1825, and the follow ing year, upon the establishment of the Universi ty of London. he received the appointment of professor of jurisprudence in that institution.
This was before the period of the scientific study of the law in England, and her lawyers had not yet become aware of the existence of the science of jurisprudence. Hence his unrivaled pow ers of analysis and classification received scant recognition, and his work resulted in disappoint ment and apparent failure. To prepare himself for his task, he went to Bonn, then the principal seat of juristic learning in Europe. and spent the winter reading and studying under Niebuhr, Brandis, Schlegel, Arndt, Weleker, and Slackel dey. Returning in the spring of 1828. he began his lectures at University College. Ills earnest ness and enthusiasm were not adequate to render his precise and accurate definitions and his pro found and refined reasoning attractive to the professional students of law, and it soon became evident that there was no demand for the scien tific teaching of jurisprudence. The number of
his students dwindled to a mere handful. Un fortunately, no provision was made for the chair of jurisprudence beyond class fees; and in the absence of students, Austin, in 1832, was reluc tantly compelled to resign his appointment. In the same year, he published his Province of Ju rispri«lence Determined, a work at the time lit tle appreciated by the general public, so that the slight success it met with did not encourage him to undertake other publieations on the subject. In the estimation of competent judges, however, it placed its author in the highest rank among writers on jurisprudence. ln 1883, he was ap pointed by Lord Brougham a member of the crim inal law commission. The post was not much to his taste, as he did not believe that the public re ceived any advantage from such bodies, in the efficacy of which for constructive purposes he put no faith.
In 1,436, he and his friend and pupil. Sir George Cornewall Lewis, were appointed com missioners to inquire into the laws and usages, the administration and state of government of the island of Malta, a congenial task which was performed with remarkable ability and thorough ness. But again his health broke down. and in 1838 he returned to England, only to be ordered abroad by his physicians. The next ten years were spent on the Continent, but the Revolution of 1848 drove him back to England. He then settled at \Vevbridge, in Surrey, where he lived until his death in December, 1859. His lectures on the principles of jurisprudence had remained in manuscript and were left by him in a frag mentary and imperfect state. It is due to the intelligence and zeal of his widow that they were subsequently collected and arranged for publica tion and in 1863 given to the world under the title Lectures on Jurisprudence, Being the Sequel to "The Province of Jurisprudence Determined," of which latter she had published a second edi tion in 1801. On this work his fame now rests.