Wikipedia:Peer review/William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield/archive1

William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield

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A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for March 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I want to (eventually) get it up to FA as part of my wider get-articles-about-lawyers-up-to-a-higher-standard project (see Lord Denning and Norman Birkett, say). Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks, Ironholds (talk) 20:44, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC. The sourcing looks good.

Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 13:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Err, thanks. I was pretty sure about the referencing anyway, but third-party confirmation is nice at least. Ironholds (talk) 11:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This is most interesting and illuminating, and it is generally well-written. Its greatest weakness may be its heavy dependence on the Heward book as the main reliable source. I know little about British legal history, so I'm unable to say whether other reliable sources exist. If they do, you should consult them too and perhaps revise accordingly, here and there. Here are my specific suggestions, mostly dealing with prose issues.

Lead

"Perth" in the second sentence links to a disambiguation page and should link to Perth, Scotland. A handy dab checker lives here. After noticing the Perth dab, I ran the dab checker on the whole article, and it found two more, Jacobite and Lloyd Kenyon. It's the second instance of Jacobite, in the "Early life and education" section that's the problem and also the third instance, in the "Junius" section. The Lloyd Kenyon instance appears in the "Resignation" section.
"23 November, 1730" - WP:MOSNUM#Dates suggests that full dates in this format look like this: 23 November 1730. The comma should be removed from these dates throughout the article.

Early life and education

"The distance from Perth to London was around 400 miles... " - WP:MOSNUM says to express quantities in both imperial and metric units. I like to use the {{convert}} template for this, thus: 400 miles (640 km). The template does the math and uses the correct abbreviations. It can convert almost any kind of unit imaginable.
"After an examination in May 1723, Murray was accepted into Christ Church, Oxford, having scored higher in the examination than any other King's Scholar.[6][3]" - Generally, it's a good idea to arrange adjacent citations like these in ascending order; i.e, [3][6].
"became a member of Lincoln's Inn in 23 April 1724" - "on" rather than "in"?
"This was seen as Murray showing his support for the House of Hanover" - A bit awkward. Suggestion: "His actions were seen as a show of support for the House of Hanover... ".
"it is known that he studied both ancient and modern history" - Delete "both"?

At the English Bar

"At this time, there was no formal legal education, and the only requirement for a person to be called to the Bar was for them to have eaten five "dinners" a term at Lincoln's Inn, and to have read the first sentence of a paper prepared for them by the steward... ". - "him" rather than "them"? In two places.
"To deal with these cases, a barrister would have to be familiar with both Scottish and English law" - "had" rather than "would have"?
"established Murray as a brilliant young barrister, with Lords Cowper and Parker both complimenting him on his performance" - The "with plus -ing" construction is deprecated. Suggestion: "established Murray as a brilliant young barrister praised for his performance by Lords Cowper and Parker".

Member of Parliament

"Although many barristers were not good politicians, Murray became a successful Member of Parliament, and one noted for his oratorical skills and logical arguments.[13][1]" - Here's another set of reverse-order citations.
"In an attempt to reach a compromise the government introduced a Bill to Parliament declaring that Augusta" - "bill" rather than "Bill"?
"finally attempted to blackmail him by saying that if he accepted the office of Lord Chief Justice, they would refuse to grant him a peerage" - It's not clear from this who "they" refers to.

Mercantile law changes

"In Carter v Boehm [1766] 3 Burr 1905 Murray got a chance to reform the law... " - I'm not sure what the sequence of numbers and "Burr" refer to. I think at least the "Burr" part and other constructions like this need to be spelled out on first use and perhaps briefly explained.
"He took out an insurance policy against the fort being taken by a foreign enemy with Boehm." - Suggestion: "He took out an insurance policy with Boehm against the fort being taken by a foreign enemy."
"Murray decided in favour of Boehm, saying that he had failed his duty of uberrima fides." - Wasn't it Carter who failed rather than Boehm?
"Although the doctrine of Consideration is not a valid element of commercial contracts... " - This seems to contradict the statement a few sentences above that "In English law, Consideration is a vital part of the contract; without valid consideration, any contract is void."

Junius

"was published by the Public Advertiser and the London Evening Post, a newspaper run by John Miller" - Newspaper names should appear in italics. I fixed a couple of these, but here are a couple more.

Abolition of slavery

"Murray is best known for his judgement on the legality of keeping slaves in Somersett's Case." - Suggestion: "Murray is best known for his judgement in Somersett's Case on the legality of keeping slaves."

House of Lords

"The failure of the Bill caused the government to be immediately dismissed" - "bill" rather than "Bill"?
"As such, he regularly attended the House of Lords, with the last record of his attendance being on 23 March, 1784." - Another "with plus - ing".

Images

The images look good. I don't suppose the National Gallery's copyright claim is valid, though fact checkers may ask about this. It would be good to add some dates and the painter's name, if known, to the license and description page for the Elizabeth Finch portrait. This will make it easier for fact checkers unfamiliar with the subject to be able to quickly verify the license tag's validity.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 04:07, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent, thanks; sorry about the dates. I always make sure there are no commas, but evidently some copyeditors feel differently. I'll try and find alternative sources as well. Ironholds (talk) 23:26, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Righto, all points corrected. Thanks for your help :). Ironholds (talk) 11:27, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]