Law, Justice and Empire

The Colonial Career of John Gorrie is a biographical study of Sir John Gorrie, a Scottish lawyer, who served as a judge and as chief justice in several multi-racial British colonies (Mauritius, Fiji, the Leeward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago) in the second half of the nineteenth century. Holding radical political and social views, especially a conviction that persons of all ethnic and class backgrounds should enjoy equal justice under the British crown, he was a controversial jurist who inspired both bitter opposition from colonial elites and intense admiration from the 'subject races' in each place he served...A maverick official of the British Crown, Gorrie tried to use his judicial office to secure justice and protection for ex-slaves, indentured labourers, indigenous peoples and other nonwhite groups in the empire. Law, Justice and Empire is an original contribution to the comparative history of the nineteenth century British empire, as well as to the history of the Caribbean, Mauritius and Fiji in that period. It extends our understanding of the empire and how it was administered.