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Professor Peter Birks QC DCL FBA 1941-2004
Regius Professor of Civil Law, University of Oxford

It is with enormous sadness that we have to report the untimely death of my immediate predecessor as President. It is almost unbelievable that this has happened only a few months since his immensely impressive conference at Oxford.

Peter was an intellectual giant of his generation with an outstanding commitment to legal scholarship and legal education. His own scholarship was of course the highest quality traditional doctrinal scholarship, but he was among the first to recognise the validity of other ways of looking at the law. His output was prodigious and highly influential, especially (but by no means exclusively) in the field of restitution. His outstanding international reputation was reflected in the honours he achieved. At the same time Peter was a source of constant inspiration and encouragement to his many students and to younger colleagues.

The Society owes as great a debt to Peter as I think it does to anyone in living memory. This is not simply because of his Presidency, but also because of the fact that he was Honorary Secretary (of the then SPTL) from 1989 to 1996. He was a moving force in consolidating the Society as a genuine learned society, with, among other things, active and successful subject sections and programmes of seminars and lectures, many of which Peter himself organised. Without his tireless devotion and commitment and unfailing courtesy and concern, the Society would be a much less interesting and influential organisation. We must and we shall honour his memory in a fitting and enduring way.

Professor John Birds. 6th July 2004.
SLS President. University of Sheffield.