Later Centuries

The disputes and disaffection that led to the Civil War was reflected within the Inn, whose members were ranged on either side. The life of the Inn came to a stop during the hostilities, and though at the Restoration the attempt was made to return to the old practices training in the Moots came to an end. Indeed little or no formal education was offered to those who still came as students to the Inns.

Armour

Call to the Bar or keeping terms in one of the four Inns a pre-requisite to Call at King's Inns until late in the 19th century. At times in the 18th century as many entrants to the Inn gave addresses in Ireland as gave English ones. In the 17th and 18th centuries students came from the American colonies and from many of the West Indian islands. The Inn's records would lead one to suppose that for a time there was hardly a young gentleman in Charleston who had not studied here. Five of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence were Middle Templars, and notwithstanding it and its consequences Americans continued to come here until the War of 1812. In the 19th century Indian addresses begin to appear and within a few years of that Indian names as well. The close connection with many of the countries of the Commonwealth remains to this day.

In 1852, following a Select Committee investigation, the four Inns established the Council of Legal Education and the formal responsibility for the education of students passed to that body. More recent years have seen a number of changes in the qualifications asked of a student who would be called to the Bar, and to the institutions where those qualifications can be attained.