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Robert Goff, Baron Goff of Chieveley

English barrister and judge (1926–2016)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ1628019
Source-derived summary

Robert Lionel Archibald Goff, Baron Goff of Chieveley, (12 November 1926 – 14 August 2016) was an English barrister and judge who was Senior Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, the equivalent of today's President of the Supreme Court. Best known for establishing unjust enrichment as a branch of English law, he has been described by Andrew Burrows as "the greatest judge of modern times". Goff was the original co-author of Goff & Jones, the leading English law textbook on restitution and unjust enrichment, first published in 1966. He practised as a commercial barrister from 1951 to 1975, following which he began his career as a judge. He was appointed to the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords in 1986.

Goff was born in his mother's family home in Perthshire, Scotland, and was raised in Hampshire, England. He obtained a place at New College, Oxford, but was called up in December 1944 and served in the Scots Guards in Italy until going to Oxford in October 1948. He earned a first-class degree in Jurisprudence there, and three weeks after receiving his examination results was offered a fellowship at Oxford. He accepted this on condition that he could be called to the Bar first. He was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1951, and appointed fellow and tutor at Lincoln College, Oxford, and a university lecturer in Jurisprudence in 1952.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Robert Goff, Baron Goff of Chieveley” as english barrister and judge (1926–2016). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Robert, Goff and Baron.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1926, 2016, 1966, 1951—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1926-11-12. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Robert, Goff and Baron providing the first useful test.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Robert Goff, Baron Goff of Chieveley”, the useful work is to connect “english barrister and judge (1926–2016)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1628019. VIAF identifies the subject as 76378831. The Library of Congress control number is n87824969. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1926, 2016, 1966 and 1951.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Robert Goff, Baron Goff of Chieveley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.