Middle Temple

An Introduction to the Middle Temple

The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple ("the Inn") is one of the four Inns of Court which are responsible for the training and regulation of barristers in England and Wales. It occupies the western half of the land known as the Temple formerly the London headquarters of the Knights Templar which lies between Fleet Street and the Embankment on the edge of the City of London.

The Inn offers training to its student members to augment the teaching at their formal courses. Middle Temple Advocacy gives training to newly called barristers in pupillage, and thereafter under the New Practitioners Programme. as continuing professional training extends through the profession the Middle Temple will, with the other Inns, become involved in it.

Middle Temple provides accommodation, both professional and residential, as well as offering a range of scholarships. The Inns library provides research services to members of all the Inns including internet services.

The Middle Temple has occupied its present site since the mid-14th century when this Society rented the land from the Knights Hospitaller, who had acquired it following the fall of the Knights Templar. After the Reformation the Temple became the property of the Crown until 1608 when King James I conveyed the lands of the Temple to the Societies of Inner Temple and Middle Temple. The records of the Inn date back to 1501.

Besides numerous Lord Chancellors, Masters of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justices and famous law writers and barristers, the Inn has had, and continues to have, many eminent statesmen and politicians among its membership. Those who distinguished themselves in other fields include the Elizabethan explorers, sailors and soldiers such as Sir Martin Frobisher, Sir John Hawkins and Sir Walter Raleigh. Men of letters, philosophers and antiquarians who studied and dined here include John Evelyn, Elias Ashmole, William Congreve, Henry Fielding, Edmund Burke, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Dickens, Sir James Frazer and John Buchan. Queen Margrethe II of Denmark became an Honorary Bencher in 1992. In the past King Edward VII, Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, King Edward VIII (The Duke of Windsor) Queen Elizabeth (The Queen Mother) and Diana, Princess of Wales were Royal Benchers of the Inn.