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UCL Laws Lecturer awarded prestigious grant
7 March 2016
The British Academy/Leverhulme Trust has awarded a 10-month Small Research Grant to Dr Ian Williams from the UCL Faculty of Laws
Ian received the prestigious grant to pursue his research ‘Understanding the Star Chamber as a court of criminal equity, c.1580-1640.’
The research will investigate how the Star Chamber was understood in early-modern legal thought and how it understood itself:
- what the court’s role was thought to be;
- what rules or values the court was meant to apply;
- and whether it applied those rules and values.
Speaking on receiving the award Ian said ‘Not only should this research enhance our understanding of an important aspect of legal history, it may also reshape long-held assumptions about the constitution in a turbulent time.’
Ian is a Lecturer at the Faculty of Laws having joined in September 2009 from Cambridge University. His research interests lie in legal history, particularly early-modern English legal history (c.1500-c.1640). He has particular interests in the history of common-law reasoning and its interaction with legal theory as well as the relationship between texts and legal practice.