Professor Michael Lobban

Michael Lobban’s research focuses on the history of English law and lawyers as well as the wider British empire. With co-author James C. Oldham, he is currently completing volume X of the Oxford History of the Laws of England, covering the reign of George III, and is a co-author of volumes XI-XIII of the same series. He has written widely on the history of English legal thought and practice, including The Common Law and English Jurisprudence, 1760-1850 (1991) and A History of the Philosophy of Law in the Common Law World, 1600-1900 (2007). He is also interested in the role of law at a time of imperial expansion, and is the author of Imperial Incarceration: Detention without trial in the Making of British Colonial Africa (2021). His Modern Law Review article, ‘The Travels of Treason’, was the recipient of the 2025 Sutherland Prize. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and secretary of the Selden Society.