Bruce Kercher
Biographic Data
| ID | 5201554 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bruce Kercher |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bruce |
| FAMILY NAME | Kercher |
| SIGNATURE | KERCHER B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Macquarie University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 19 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 11 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
My Life in History
Bruce Kercher began undergraduate study in arts and law at Sydney University in the late 1960s, at the beginning of the rapid rise of university places in Australia. He later spent most of his academic career at Macquarie University when the study of law was changing from staid positivism to a rich engagement with the place of law in society. His discovery of legal history and the joys of archival research allowed him to see the distinctive place…
Colonial Settlement to Colony
The legal structure of the first half century of colonial New South Wales had a military appearance. The first judges had the military title of Judge Advocate and the criminal court’s jury consisted of military officers. The colony’s initial constitution was autocratic, most of its powers being in the hands of the governors. Despite these restrictions, the colony’s courts applied civilian rather than military law. They were also the location for …
An Unruly Child
'This is a provocative re-examination of our legal history appearing at a time when Australians are reconsidering both their past and their future.' - The Hon. Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG, President of the New South Wales Court of AppealThe imperial view of Australian law was that it was a weak derivative of English law. In An Unruly Child, Bruce Kercher rewrites history. He reveals that since 1788 there has been a contest between the received l…
Books
A History of the Churches in Australasia. By Ian Breward. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. xxi + 474. £65.00 doth. Holocaust Remembrance in Australian Jewish Communities 1945–2000. By Judith E. Berman. Perth: University of Western Australia Press, 2001. Pp. 276. $34.95 paper. Speaking to Immigrants: Oral Testimony and the History of Australian Migration. Edited by A. James Hammerton and Eric Richards. Canberra: History Program and Centr…
Many Laws, Many Legalities
Peter Karsten asks why there might be a greater comparative propensity among CANZ historians than among those of the United States. Part of the reason may lie in the legal education many of us in Australia received, and in the formal legal status of many commonwealth countries until recently. As recently as the early 1970s, Australian law students were taught that English law was as significant as that made in the Australian courts. Appeals from …
Perish or Prosper
For over 150 years from the early eighteenth century, convict transportation was a primary method of punishing serious crime in Britain and Ireland. Convicts were first sent to the colonies in North America and the Caribbean and then to three newly established Australian colonies on the other side of the world. Conditions were very different between the two locations, yet the fundamental law of transportation remained the same for decades after t…
Recovering and Reporting Australia's Early Colonial Case Law
When it was established in 1788, New South Wales became the most remote, and most peculiar, of the British empire's overseas colonies. The founding colony of what would eventually become Australia, it was established as a penal colony, a place to send the unwanted criminals of Britain and Ireland. Britain lost more than the majority of its North American possessions in the late eighteenth century. It also lost its principal repository for unwante…
Collins, the Courts & the Colony
Journal Article Collins, the Courts & the Colony: Law and Society in Colonial New South Wales 1788–1796 Get access Nagle J. F., Collins, the Courts & the Colony: Law and Society in Colonial New South Wales 1788–1796. Kensington: University of New South Wales Press, 1996. Xvi, 337 pp. $34.95 (paper). Bruce Kercher Bruce Kercher Macquarie University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Legal H…
Resistance to Law under Autocracy
Commerce and the Development of Contract Law in Early New South Wales
The penal colony of New South Wales was founded in January, 1788, with a population of convicts, military people, and a few civil officers. The settlement displaced one of the oldest cultures on earth, as English law failed to recognize that the Aborigines had any right to the land they had occupied for 40,000 years. On their first night ashore the women convicts were greeted by mass debauchery that deserved to be recorded by Hogarth, all under a…
The Supreme Court of Queensland 1859-1960
Journal Article The Supreme Court of Queensland 1859–1960: History, Jurisdiction, Procedure Get access McPherson B. H., The Supreme Court of Queensland 1859–1960: History, Jurisdiction, Procedure. Sydney: Butterworths, 1989, xxiii, 439 pp. $99.00. (Australian). Bruce Kercher Bruce Kercher Macquarie University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Legal History, Volume 35, Issue 2, April 1991,…
Perish or Prosper
For over 150 years from the early eighteenth century, convict transportation was a primary method of punishing serious crime in Britain and Ireland. Convicts were first sent to the colonies in North America and the Caribbean and then to three newly established Australian colonies on the other side of the world. Conditions were very different between the two locations, yet the fundamental law of transportation remained the same for decades after t…
Recovering and Reporting Australia's Early Colonial Case Law
When it was established in 1788, New South Wales became the most remote, and most peculiar, of the British empire's overseas colonies. The founding colony of what would eventually become Australia, it was established as a penal colony, a place to send the unwanted criminals of Britain and Ireland. Britain lost more than the majority of its North American possessions in the late eighteenth century. It also lost its principal repository for unwante…
Resistance to Law under Autocracy
Commerce and the Development of Contract Law in Early New South Wales
The penal colony of New South Wales was founded in January, 1788, with a population of convicts, military people, and a few civil officers. The settlement displaced one of the oldest cultures on earth, as English law failed to recognize that the Aborigines had any right to the land they had occupied for 40,000 years. On their first night ashore the women convicts were greeted by mass debauchery that deserved to be recorded by Hogarth, all under a…
The Supreme Court of Queensland 1859-1960
Journal Article The Supreme Court of Queensland 1859–1960: History, Jurisdiction, Procedure Get access McPherson B. H., The Supreme Court of Queensland 1859–1960: History, Jurisdiction, Procedure. Sydney: Butterworths, 1989, xxiii, 439 pp. $99.00. (Australian). Bruce Kercher Bruce Kercher Macquarie University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Legal History, Volume 35, Issue 2, April 1991,…
Resistance to Law under Autocracy
Collins, the Courts & the Colony
Journal Article Collins, the Courts & the Colony: Law and Society in Colonial New South Wales 1788–1796 Get access Nagle J. F., Collins, the Courts & the Colony: Law and Society in Colonial New South Wales 1788–1796. Kensington: University of New South Wales Press, 1996. Xvi, 337 pp. $34.95 (paper). Bruce Kercher Bruce Kercher Macquarie University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Legal H…
Recovering and Reporting Australia's Early Colonial Case Law
When it was established in 1788, New South Wales became the most remote, and most peculiar, of the British empire's overseas colonies. The founding colony of what would eventually become Australia, it was established as a penal colony, a place to send the unwanted criminals of Britain and Ireland. Britain lost more than the majority of its North American possessions in the late eighteenth century. It also lost its principal repository for unwante…
Books
A History of the Churches in Australasia. By Ian Breward. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. xxi + 474. £65.00 doth. Holocaust Remembrance in Australian Jewish Communities 1945–2000. By Judith E. Berman. Perth: University of Western Australia Press, 2001. Pp. 276. $34.95 paper. Speaking to Immigrants: Oral Testimony and the History of Australian Migration. Edited by A. James Hammerton and Eric Richards. Canberra: History Program and Centr…
Many Laws, Many Legalities
Peter Karsten asks why there might be a greater comparative propensity among CANZ historians than among those of the United States. Part of the reason may lie in the legal education many of us in Australia received, and in the formal legal status of many commonwealth countries until recently. As recently as the early 1970s, Australian law students were taught that English law was as significant as that made in the Australian courts. Appeals from …
Perish or Prosper
For over 150 years from the early eighteenth century, convict transportation was a primary method of punishing serious crime in Britain and Ireland. Convicts were first sent to the colonies in North America and the Caribbean and then to three newly established Australian colonies on the other side of the world. Conditions were very different between the two locations, yet the fundamental law of transportation remained the same for decades after t…
An Unruly Child
'This is a provocative re-examination of our legal history appearing at a time when Australians are reconsidering both their past and their future.' - The Hon. Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG, President of the New South Wales Court of AppealThe imperial view of Australian law was that it was a weak derivative of English law. In An Unruly Child, Bruce Kercher rewrites history. He reveals that since 1788 there has been a contest between the received l…
Colonial Settlement to Colony
The legal structure of the first half century of colonial New South Wales had a military appearance. The first judges had the military title of Judge Advocate and the criminal court’s jury consisted of military officers. The colony’s initial constitution was autocratic, most of its powers being in the hands of the governors. Despite these restrictions, the colony’s courts applied civilian rather than military law. They were also the location for …
My Life in History
Bruce Kercher began undergraduate study in arts and law at Sydney University in the late 1960s, at the beginning of the rapid rise of university places in Australia. He later spent most of his academic career at Macquarie University when the study of law was changing from staid positivism to a rich engagement with the place of law in society. His discovery of legal history and the joys of archival research allowed him to see the distinctive place…
Law (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · History (8 works) · Law (8 works) · History (7 works) · Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Australian History and Society (5 works) · Colonialism (3 works) · Colonialism, slavery, and trade (3 works)