As a judge, and Chief Justice, Stawell was ideal for his times. In the later half of the nineteenth century, Victoria needed a judge who was able to dispense justice speedily. He was a man prepared to lead the community by speaking out, in a variety of venues, on the necessity of the rule of law the vital plank in an ordered society.

This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.