Biographies - G through I

GILES, William Branch, a Representative and a Senator from Virginia; born near Amelia Court House, Amelia County, Va., August 12, 1762; pursued classical studies and graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1781; studied law; was admitted to the bar and practiced in Petersburg, Va., 1784-1789; elected to the First Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Theodorick Bland; reelected to the Second and to the three succeeding Congresses and served from December 7, 1790, to October 2, 1798, when he resigned; member, State house of delegates 1798-1800; elected as a Republican to the Seventh Congress (March 4, 1801-March 3, 1803); appointed to the United States Senate as a Republican to fill the vacancy in the term beginning March 4, 1803, caused by the resignation of Abraham B. Venable; while holding the office of Senator-designate was elected on December 4, 1804, to fill the vacancy in the term beginning March 4, 1799, caused by the resignation of Wilson C. Nicholas; was reelected in 1804 and 1811 and served from August 11, 1804, to March 3, 1815, when he resigned; member, State house of delegates 1816-1817, 1826-1827; unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1825; Governor of Virginia 1827-1830; was a member of the State constitutional convention in 1829 and 1830; again elected Governor in 1830, but declined; died on his estate, 'Wigwam,' near Amelia Court House, Amelia County, Va., December 4, 1830; interment in a private cemetery on his estate.

HENING, William Waller, compiler of the The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, From the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619; 13 vols., Richmond, 1809 - 1823 (New York: R & W & G. Bartow, 1823).

During the first 175 years of Virginia lawmaking, no official effort was made to preserve the laws that the General Assembly passed. In the early years, manuscript copies were read at the beginning of monthly court sessions, and legislators spread information on new laws among constituents by word of mouth. A few collections of Virginia laws were printed in London before 1733, when the first printing of laws took place in Virginia. After more than 150 years of lawmaking, it became obvious that courts and lawyers were not always uniform in their application of laws relating to property and other historical issues, such as Indian servitude, because there was no master collection of the "ancient" laws for precedents. Some manuscript copies remained in the hands of the families of former magistrates and some lay rotting in county courthouses.

Thus, in 1795, the General Assembly authorized the publication of laws passed since the beginning of settlement and relating to land and inheritance of property. Thomas Jefferson, who had made a large and important personal collection of Virginia laws dating from 1734, recommended publishing all the old laws that could be found and offered to supervise the work of copying them. He estimated it would take a clerk a year or more to copy them all and felt that three people could work about a day a week collating the manuscripts.2

Not until 1808 did the General Assembly decide to tackle the project, with William Waller Hening in charge. Hening's thirteen volumes were published in the early 1820s, covering all the laws that could be found in manuscript or printed form, dating from 1619 (the date of the first General Assembly) to 1792. The effort was indebted to Jefferson's collection and preservation of many of the early laws.

In addition to statutes, Hening chose to include in the first volume other historically significant documents, such as the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, Virginia's Declaration of Rights, the Constitution of Virginia, and the royal charters for settlement. Hening obtained the full original Virginia charter texts from William Stith, The History of the First Discovery and Settlement of Virginia (Williamsburg, Printed by William Parks, 1747).