Christopher W. Brooks ’70

A heart attack claimed Chris on Aug. 19, 2014.

He came us to from the McDonogh School in Maryland. While an undergraduate, Chris coached the lacrosse team at the Peddie School. He was one of our few classmates who married during our undergraduate years.

Commissioned in the Army, Chris earned a doctorate from Linacre College at Oxford. He commenced an auspicious career in teaching and research in the history of the law.

Chris focused on the English Civil War. An expert in the history of law and lawyers, he concentrated on the “middling sort,” the new middle class and their lawyers, as law practice moved from being conducted in Latin to English. His interest was in the growing relevance law was to have for everyday English life.

Chris published numerous books and essays during his life. A founding board member of the Law and History Review as well as a Mellon and Leverhulme fellow, Chris recently had spent a year in the Huntington Library in California, where he renewed class connections while working on the Civil War volume of the Oxford History of the Laws of England.

To his wife, Sharyn; his son, Gavin; and daughter Tracy, the class offers condolences.