Speech of Welcome to the Chancellor, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, by the Rt. Hon. Lord Diplock
"Your Majesty and Chancellor:
It is a great pleasure and honour to me, Ma'am, as Chairman of the Committee of Managment of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies ... to welcome you here this afternoon and to express to you the gratitude of both Institutes for your gracious response to our request that you should come and open our new building. I should also like to welcome a number of distinguished guests both from this country and from abroad.
It was some sixteen years ago that Professor Sir David Hughes Parry and Professor Norman Anderson had the vision of a new building which would provide adequate accommodation both for the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, of which they were then respectively Chairman of the Committee of Management and Director, and also for the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, which has had then been founded very recently by Lord Denning from the Grotius Society and the Society of Comparative Legislation and International Law. Part of this vision was that a spacious building, which could house both Institutes, would form a focal point for visiting lawyers from all over the world, and a meeting place for practitioners, academic lawyers and persons from allied disciplines from all parts of this country.
Sir David Hughes Parry - the only person to hold the offices of Vice-Chancellor and Chairman of the Court - obtained from the University a promise of this excellent site, and it was as long ago as 1961 that Mr. Denys Lasdun (whom we are pleased to welcome here this afternoon) was appointed prospective architect. Many delays followed, but the building was eventually begun in 1970. Even since then there have been a number of problems; but at last the dream of many years has been fulfilled.
We now have a building which makes adequate provision for what has grown into the best legal library in London, a Senior Common Room devoted to the memory of Mr Howard Drake (who did so much to establish the international reputation of the Institute), this Council Chamber, named after Sir David Hughes Parry, whose brother we welcome here to-day, and the Lecture Theatre below, to which this short ceremony is being relayed by television - together with seminar rooms and many other facilities.
It is now my privilege, Ma'am, on behalf of the two Institutes, to invite you to open Charles Clore House."