On 25 and 26 September an international symposium on the theme ‘Comparing Contract Laws’, organised by Christ Church and the Institute of European and Comparative Law in the Oxford Law Faculty, was held in the Research Centre at Christ Church in honour of Professor John Cartwright, Tutor in Law at the House from 1982 to 2018, and now Emeritus Student and Emeritus Professor of the Law of Contract in the University. 

On 27 September, the Christ Church Law Tutors, Edwin Simpson and Ciara Kennefick, hosted a lunch in Hall in honour of Professor Cartwright, to which all our alumni who read Law, and other alumni now practising the Law, were invited. Photos from the event are available here. 

We asked Professor Cartwright to reflect on these events, his time at Christ Church, and his retirement:

“These events have brought together so many key people. We had a wonderful symposium, involving not only academic colleagues from the UK and abroad (Chile, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain), but also former Christ Church undergraduate and graduate students who brought a really valuable practitioner perspective to the discussions. It was very significant for me that the focus was contract and comparative law; that my colleagues at the Institute of European and Comparative Law joined with Christ Church in organising it; and that Christ Church alumni practitioners were able to take part.

The lunch in Hall on 27 September was very special, with so many former students as well as those who have taught Law during my time in Christ Church. Teddy Burn is very sadly no longer with us, but I was delighted to see Adrian Shipwright - my other Tutor - as well as tutors, lecturers and weekenders who taught here during the period when I joined Teddy as Law Tutor (1982 to 1990) and when Edwin Simpson joined me on Teddy’s retirement (1990 until my own retirement in 2018).

It is always a joy to have the Christ Church Law family back together, and particularly when it can take place within the House. As I looked around Hall, I felt a wave of nostalgia, seeing different year groups of undergraduates and graduates – all of whom we Tutors remember better than they might think.

There were, of course, significant developments over my time as a Law Tutor. I would highlight two. First, in the Faculty, the increase in the range of graduate law degrees – including the MJur, which gave new opportunities for lawyers from civil law jurisdictions to come to study here; and the new undergraduate exchange scheme which gave our students opportunities to study abroad. This link with the civil law systems was particularly important for me: I was involved in running the Faculty’s exchange programmes from 2000 to 2013, and I became Director of the Institute of European and Comparative Law in 2015. Secondly, within college, Edwin Simpson and I were able to achieve a significant increase in the number of graduate places for Law – not just the BCL and the MJur, but MPhil, DPhil and graduate degrees in Law and Finance, Criminology and Tax.

People keep asking me about my retirement. There comes a time to retire and hand over to others, who can give a new vigour to the operation of Law in the House. As I said in my speech in Hall after the lunch, you know you are getting older not when the policemen start getting younger, but when your students start becoming High Court Judges.

I retired from Christ Church and the Oxford Faculty in 2018, although not everything stopped: I took on some first-year tutorials in college in 2019, and some comparative law teaching in the Faculty which lasted until last year. I was also persuaded to continue – and, in fact, to increase – my teaching in Paris, although that also finished last year. I still have academic projects, with new editions of my books, and occasional conferences and lectures. So the honest answer is that I keep trying to retire – and I am slowly succeeding. But I was very happy to be persuaded by Edwin Simpson and Ciara Kennefick to be used as the excuse for a reunion of the Christ Church Law family at the lunch in Hall. It was wonderful to see so many familiar faces again, even though the nature of the event meant that I could not catch up properly with everyone. But I look forward to keeping in touch.”