The Queen's College. Photo: M stone at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Queens_College.JPG)
The Queen's College. Photo: M stone at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Queens_College.JPG)
Ian Inglis (1934–2009) was a Scottish lawyer and a partner of the Glasgow law firm Maclay Murray & Spens from 1961 to 1996. A Writer to the Signet who was admitted to the bar in Scotland in 1959, his work included complex commercial disputes for clients in Scotland and abroad.
Background
Ian Inglis was born on 21 July 1934 in Bridgewater, Somerset, England. His family background lay in Scotland, with links to the Glasgow shipbuilding firm A. & J. Inglis, which belonged to the shipbuilding and heavy engineering industries that remained active in west Scotland during his early career.
He was educated at Shrewsbury House, an independent school in Surrey, and then at Wellington College, which was founded in 1859 as a national memorial to the Duke of Wellington. During his studies the family home was in Ayr, a town on Scotland's south-west coast.
Education
Inglis studied law at Queen's College, Oxford, one of the colleges of the University of Oxford, which was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield. Oxford's collegiate system gave each college its own community of tutors and students within a university that is among the oldest in the English-speaking world. He received the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws.
He was admitted to the bar in Scotland in 1959. Scottish usage reserves the term bar for advocates, whereas the Writers to the Signet are solicitors whose members historically prepared writs under the royal signet.
Inglis began his legal career in Scotland after his admission in 1959. In 1961 he became a partner of Maclay Murray & Spens, a firm founded in Glasgow in 1871 by David Maclay, David Murray and John Spens as the first law firm in Scotland with a specifically commercial practice. He remained a partner there until 1996, and the firm later merged with Dentons in 2017.
His early years in the firm coincided with a period of intense commercial litigation at Glasgow Sheriff Court. Sheriff Courts are Scotland's principal local courts, and much of this work arose from the shipbuilding and heavy engineering industries of west Scotland.
According to his obituary, his counsel was especially valued when he explained the implications of a case to clients in Scotland and elsewhere. The same obituary notes his ability to identify the essentials of complex commercial disputes.
Membership
Inglis was a Writer to the Signet, a designation linked to the Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet. The society's members have belonged to the College of Justice since its establishment, which parliament ratified in 1540, and they were traditionally associated with preparing writs that bore the royal signet.
He was also a member of the Royal Faculty of Procurators in Glasgow, a long-established professional body for solicitors in the city.
Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet
Royal Faculty of Procurators in Glasgow
Interests
Shooting and fishing, which were close to hand at the family home at Cambuswallace, remained central to his life.
Connections
Ian Inglis had four children: Arabella, Lucy, Jake and Willy, who grew up at Cambuswallace, the family house. That house, together with the shooting and fishing close at hand, remained central to his life until his sudden death at home in Biggar in October 2009.
child:
Arabella
child:
Lucy
child:
Jake
child:
Willy
References
Ian Inglis, lawyer
The Scotsman obituary that records his birth and death dates and places, his schooling and Oxford studies, his partnership at Maclay Murray & Spens from 1961 to 1996, and his family life.
