A Guide to the William M. Connor Papers
A Collection in
The Special Collections Department
Accession Number 3287
![[logo]](http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaead/logos/uva-sc.jpg)
Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections LibraryUniversity of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4110
USA
Phone: (434) 243-1776
Fax: (434) 924-4968
Reference Request Form: https://small.lib.virginia.edu/reference-request/
URL: http://small.library.virginia.edu/
© 2002 By the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia. All rights reserved.
Funding: Web version of the finding aid funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Processed by: Karen D. Paul
Administrative Information
Access Restrictions
There are no restrictions.
Use Restrictions
See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.
Preferred Citation
William M. Connor Papers, Accession #3287, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
Acquisition Information
The William Mellard Connor Papers were a gift from Colonel William M. Connor, Jr., USA on 26 August 1949.
Biographical/Historical Information
William Mellard Connor was born on 31 August 1878, the son of William M. Connor (1847-1922) and Theresa Olivia Moores Connor (1847-1932). He married Artemisia Katharine Peyton on 26 October 1911. They had one son, William M. Connor, Jr., born on 27 October 1912.
Connor received his B.A. from Wofford College, South Carolina, in 1897, and from January 1899 through June 1900, was enrolled as a special student at the University of Virginia Law School. He received an LL.B. from the University of Virginia in 1923, and from 1928 to 1929 did graduate work in law at Harvard University. The Pennsylvania Military College presented Connor with an honorary Doctor of Military Law in 1943.
Connor's legal career was extensive and varied. From 1902 to 1920, he served in the Philippines, entering the Philippine civil service from South Carolina in 1902. In 1903, he was appointed Assisant Attorney for the Moro Province, and served successively as attorney for the Moro Province, 1908 to 1914; City Attorney of Manila, 1914; and as Judge, Court of First Instance, Eighteenth Judicial District, 1914 to 1918.
In December 1917, he was appointed Major, Judge Advocate of the Reserve Corps. From 1918 to 1920, he was a member of the Department of the Judge Advocate and served on the General Board of Review, the Special Clemency Board, and the Military Justice Board of Review, J. A. G. O.
Connor served under General Enoch H. Crowder in Cuba from January through March 1921, and later joined the War Department General Staff in Washington, D. C. He served two tours of duty as a professor of law at West Point, and upon his retirement as a Colonel in 1944, he did research in military law at the University of Virginia.
His scholarly writings were mainly in the areas of military law and the administration of military justice. He was a member of the South Carolina, Philippine Islands, and United States Supreme Court Bars.
Scope and Content Information
The William M. Connor Papers, 1907-1949 include correspondence, speeches, drafts of articles, legal research notes, a military justice legal file, and a number of miscellaneous items which document Connor's career as a Judge Advocate in the United States Army.
Correspondence of particular interest include papers concerning the court martial controversy of 1918-1919; correspondence with Roscoe Pound concerning study at Harvard Law School during the academic year 1927- 1928; papers containing a Latin-American legal delegation visit to the University of Virginia Law School in 1945; miscellaneous correspondence concerning the Moro Province, Philippines, 1907-1913; and correspondence concerning Connor's appointment to a judgeship in 1914.
Correspondents of interest include Walter P. Armstrong, former President of the American Bar Association; Lt. Col. A. B. Butts; James F. Byrnes; General Enoch H. Crowder; Roscoe Pound; J. S. Powell; and Daniel R. Williams.
The military justice legal file, 1940-1943, consists of memoranda and reports together with a small amount of correspondence which pertains to the various topics covered in the file.
Arrangement
Colonel Connor had a general correspondence file, 1907-1949, arranged alphabetically by topic or individual. This arrangement has been preserved and is located in boxes 1 through 4. Boxes 4 through 6 contain his files of military justice legal papers, Second Army and West Point, 1940-1943.
Boxes 7 through 8 contain Connor's talks, 1915-1945, and articles, 1925-1944, respectively. Boxes 8 through 10 contain legal research notes, 1914-1947, arranged chronologically by topical folder. Box 10 also contains his Military Regulations Legal Source Folder of index cards, ca. 1946-ca. 1947, arranged alphabetically.
The miscellaneous items, 1912-1947, are arranged chronologically in boxes 11 through 13, and are followed by the printed material, 1910-1949, in boxes 13 and 14.
Contents List
ca. 8 items
7 items
ca. 36 items
ca. 6 items
ca. 25 items
ca. 30 items
ca. 9 items
ca. 40 items
5 items
ca. 86 items
ca. 27 items
ca. 78 items
ca. 52 items
ca. 35 items
ca. 30 items
ca. 14 items
ca. 20 items
ca. 24 items
3 items
4 items
ca. 15 items
ca. 19 items
ca. 11 items
ca. 10 items
ca. 17 items
ca. 20 items
ca. 20 items
ca. 21 items
ca. 4 items
ca. 20 items
ca. 32 items
1 item
ca. 40 items
ca. 7 items
ca. 4 items
ca. 18 items
5 items
ca. 8 items
2 items
ca. 20 items
ca. 10 items
2 items
ca. 500 items
ca. 40 items
1 item
ca. 5 items
8 items
1 item
2 items
1 item
1 item
1 item (photocopy)
ca. 38 items
1 item
ca. 75 items
8 items