Évrard Dupont
Originally from Liège, Évrard Dupont (1799-1880) was one of the first law students to enroll at the University of Liège. Appointed rector for the academic year 1836-1837 to replace Bekker who fell ill, he was extended in this role the following year. It was under his rectorship that architect Julien-Étienne Rémont undertook the renovation and enlargement of the university buildings.
Immediately after completing his studies in 1823, Évrard Dupont undertook a study trip to Utrecht, Göttingen and then Paris. Back in Liège, he joined the bar and taught commercial law at the Charlier Institute. He was then called upon to temporarily replace the ailing Léopold-Auguste Warnkoenig for theInstitutes course, with the task of teaching the repetitions in Roman law.
In 1826, he was appointed lecturer, in charge of the History of Law course, then the Civil Procedure course. In 1827, with Warnkoenig's appointment to Louvain, Dupont succeeded him in the chair of Pandectes, as Professor Extraordinaire. He was promoted to the ordinariate in 1830.
In 1836, he was called upon to replace the rector George-Joseph Bekker, who had fallen ill. He remained in this position the following year, with the imperative of implementing the law on the reorganization of education. The problems to be solved were considerable: declining course attendance, conflictual relations between students and professors, a doubled but loosely-knit academic body, the new presence of an administrator-inspector, a government commissioner, the reactions of state universities to the creation of two free universities, the questioning of pensions granted to professors' widows..
At the end of this double mandate, he devoted the rest of his career to defining the specificity of Pandect teaching and defending its relevance, before retiring in 1866.
Illustration: Lambert Sa/me, À Monsieur E. Dupont, Professeur ordinaire à université de Liège, lithograph, 1867, Musée Wittert- ULiège, inv. 2900.
