Fellows’ Lecture: Elspeth Talbot Rice QC

Society Fellows’ Lecture

Elspeth Talbot Rice QC

own – she is an alumna of St. Cuthbert’s Society, having been awarded her BA with Honours in Law in 1989; she was also a rower in a golden era for Cuth’s rowing, and is now a mentor for Team Durham.

Elspeth was called to the bar in 1990 at Lincoln’s Inn (where she was Wigglesworth Scholar), took silk in 2008, and in 2012 was elected as a Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn. Among her legal honours, Elspeth was Chambers and Partners’ Chancery Silk of the Year in 2018, Legal 500’s Trusts and Probate Silk of the Year in 2019, and has been called to the Bar of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court.

On Friday evening, 29th November, Elspeth Talbot Rice QC gave the 15th annual St. Cuthbert’s Society Fellows’ Lecture in ER201 to a large and appreciative audience of members of the public as well as JCR, SCR, Fellows and staff of the college. Elspeth’s specialism is Chancery Law, in which she enjoys an international reputation, and from 2009- 2012 she was honorary secretary of the Chancery Bar Association. But she chose a broader perspective for her lecture, which was entitled “If You Thought You Owned Your Own Limbs, Think Again: Legal Quirks and Conundrums Examined” 2019-2020 is, of course, particularly significant for St. Cuthbert’s Society as it marks 50 years since the admission of women to the Society as undergraduates. Elspeth’s lecture was an important part of the celebrations, lasting throughout the academic year, to mark that special anniversary. By a happy coincidence 2019 was also the centenary of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919 that, among other things, enabled women to practice law in British courts, as Elspeth pointed out in her opening remarks.

The lecture itself was an absorbing mixture of entertainment and erudition worn lightly.

Elspeth began with reminiscences of her student life in Cuth’s before setting the tone with an intriguing case tried in New York in 1818 as to whether barrels of whale oil should be taxed. Fish oil landed in New York was subject to tax, so the case depended on the conundrum: “Is a whale a fish?” (in New York in 1818, legally at least, it was). Many of the legal quirks examined by Elspeth turned on definitions of such common English words as “whale” and “fish” and, not surprisingly perhaps, were often instigated by liability to taxation (“food” is zero-rated for VAT, whereas “confections” are taxed at the standard VAT rate). Is a flapjack or a cereal bar a food or a confection? Are Pringles, Discos and Frisps crisps? (Apparently it depends on how much potato is used in their manufacture.) Is a Jaffa cake a cake or a biscuit? (The taxperson said it was a chocolate-covered biscuit and therefore liable to VAT, but the taxperson was wrong.) Is an Imperial Stormtrooper’s helmet a sculpture and, as a work of art, not liable to tax? (Sorry to disappoint Star Wars fans, but it seems it is not a sculpture.)

But the principal case, the one that inspired the lecture’s title, concerned a man who had broken into his former employer’s home and, pretending that his concealed hand was a gun, used the threat to rob his ex-employer. Following his arrest the malfeasant was charged and convicted of robbery and of the more serious offence of possession of an imitation firearm, to wit, his concealed hand. The robber appealed the latter conviction, and though it was upheld in the Appeal Court he was given leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, where it was struck down on the grounds that a person cannot be in possession of a part of one’s own body. Elspeth’s lecture and the subsequent questions from the fascinated audience were chaired by Dr Bob Banks, representing the Fellows, and the Principal gave the vote of thanks.

Dr Bob Banks