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Doctors' Commons

1808
Not on view
Rowlandson and Pugin here describe the hall of a self-governing, teaching body known as the College of Civilians (or Society of Doctors' Commons) on Paternoster Row. Its members specialized in ecclesiastical and civil law (as opposed to English common law), earned doctorates at Oxford or Cambridge, then were admitted as advocates by the Dean of Arches who served the archbishop of Canterbury. The fellows worked with proctors whose duties paralleled those of solicitors and, in court, concerned themselves with cases of Church and Admiralty law. On an everyday level, they verified and stored documents such as wills and marriage and divorce certificates. By the mid-nineteenth century, as England moved towards establishing a centralized supreme court in charge of both civil and common law, the Doctor's Commons became obsolete and would be dissolved.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Doctors' Commons
  • Series/Portfolio: Microcosm of London, pl. 31
  • Artist: Designed and etched by Thomas Rowlandson (British, London 1757–1827 London)
  • Artist: Designed and etched by Auguste Charles Pugin (British (born France), Paris 1768/69–1832 London)
  • Artist: Aquatint by Joseph Constantine Stadler (German, active London, 1780–1822)
  • Publisher: Rudolph Ackermann, London (British, active 1794–1832)
  • Date: 1808
  • Medium: Hand-colored etching and aquatint
  • Dimensions: Sheet (trimmed): 9 7/16 × 11 7/16 in. (24 × 29.1 cm)
    Plate: 9 × 11 1/16 in. (22.9 × 28.1 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1917
  • Object Number: 17.3.1167-141
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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