Query: London is the birthplace of William Blackstone.

Relevant passages:
William Blackstone <=SEP=> Sir William Blackstone ( 10 July 1723 -- 14 February 1780 ) was an English jurist , judge and Tory politician of the eighteenth century . He is most noted for writing the Commentaries on the Laws of England . Born into a middle-class family in London , Blackstone was educated at Charterhouse School before matriculating at Pembroke College , Oxford in 1738 . After switching to and completing a Bachelor of Civil Law degree , he was made a Fellow of All Souls , Oxford on 2 November 1743 , admitted to Middle Temple , and called to the Bar there in 1746 . Following a slow start to his career as a barrister , Blackstone became heavily involved in university administration , becoming accountant , treasurer and bursar on 28 November 1746 and Senior Bursar in 1750 . Blackstone is considered responsible for completing the Codrington Library and Warton Building , and simplifying the complex accounting system used by the college . On 3 July 1753 he formally gave up his practice as a barrister and instead embarked on a series of lectures on English law , the first of their kind . These were massively successful , earning him a total of # 453 ( # in terms ) , and led to the publication of An Analysis of the Laws of England in 1756 , which repeatedly sold out and was used to preface his later works .   On 20 October 1758 Blackstone was confirmed as the first Vinerian Professor of English Law , immediately embarking on another series of lectures and publishing a similarly successful second treatise , titled A Discourse on the Study of the Law . With his growing fame , Blackstone successfully returned to the bar and maintained a good practice , also securing election as Tory Member of Parliament for the rotten borough of Hindon on 30 March 1761 . In November 1765 he published the first of four volumes of Commentaries on the Laws of England , considered his magnum opus ; the completed work earned Blackstone # 14,000 ( # in terms ) . After repeated failures , he successfully gained appointment to the judiciary as a Justice of the Court of King 's Bench on 16 February 1770 , leaving to replace Edward Clive as a Justice of the Common Pleas on 25 June . He remained in this position until his death , on 14 February 1780 .   Blackstone 's legacy and main work of note is his Commentaries . Designed to provide a complete overview of English law , the four-volume treatise was repeatedly republished in 1770 , 1773 , 1774 , 1775 , 1778 and in a posthumous edition in 1783 . Reprints of the first edition , intended for practical use rather than antiquary interest , were published until the 1870s in England and Wales , and a working version by Henry John Stephen , first published in 1841 , was reprinted until after the Second World War . Legal education in England had stalled ; Blackstone 's work gave the law `` at least a veneer of scholarly respectability '' . William Searle Holdsworth , one of Blackstone 's successors as Vinerian Professor , argued that `` If the Commentaries had not been written when they were written , I think it very doubtful that -LSB- the United States -RSB- , and other English speaking countries would have so universally adopted the common law . '' In the United States , the Commentaries influenced Alexander Hamilton , John Marshall , James Wilson , John Jay , John Adams , James Kent and Abraham Lincoln , and remain frequently cited in Supreme Court decisions .