Professor Ian Campbell
A reformer all his life, Ian Campbell helped rejuvenate the teaching of Law at this University and made a significant contribution to the Crimes Act of 1961.
Shaping legal education
It is somewhat ironic that Ian Campbell became a professor, and later a Deputy Vice-Chancellor, at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.
As a student, Campbell had been an outspoken critic of the Law School, and his writing so rankled the University establishment that on one occasion it was controversially censored from the student magazine. This experience of academic conservatism informed Campbell's unique teaching style and sustained the reformist energy he brought to the Law School and his subsequent work on law reform.
An engaged student
At the University in the 1930s, then known as Victoria College, Campbell engaged politically in debating, public-speaking competitions and the College’s Anti-War Committee. He completed an LLB in 1933, and an LLM in 1934.
Are you committing yourself to the heresy that nothing can be done in the law if it hasn’t been done before?
Professor Ian Campbell
After working as the General Secretary of the New Zealand Police Association, he took up a teaching position at the University in 1940. During World War II he served three years with the Army Education Welfare Service, then returned to teaching full-time in the Department of English and New Zealand Law. He became Deputy Vice-Chancellor in 1962, and continued teaching part-time until 1971. He retired in 1975.
The teaching years
During the three decades he taught at the University, Campbell was regarded as an extraordinarily gifted teacher. By introducing the case or Socratic method of teaching in the 1950s, he helped to rejuvenate the study of law in Wellington. He was inspired by teaching styles that he had seen first-hand on a tour of law schools in the United States in the late 1940s.
Campbell's classes emphasised participation, argument and reasoning, making them daunting but immensely rewarding. He encouraged students to think critically about the law, posing open-ended questions and bringing his students into contact with the realities of legal work.
Outside of the classroom, Campbell took a keen interest in law reform and made significant contributions. His work in criminal law, his great passion, shaped the Crimes Act 1961.
A concern for social issues
An early Labour Party supporter, Campbell was a founder of the Wellington Legal Employees’ Union. As Deputy Vice-Chancellor, he was responsive to student demands for greater control over their education. He promoted gender equality in university recruitment, working on strategies to mitigate systemic bias against female applicants.
Campbell contributed to making important changes to the law. He worked on reforms that culminated in the Crimes Act 1961, which abolished capital punishment and modernised the law. Other areas of law where he made significant contributions included human rights, civil liberties, and adoption law.