Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow (9 December 1731–12 September 1806), Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, was born at Bracon Ash, in the county of Norfolk. He was the eldest son of the Rev. Thomas Thurlow. He was educated at a private school and at the grammar school of Canterbury, where he was considered a bold, refractory, clever boy. December 9 is the 343rd day (344th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events 10 Downing Street becomes the official residence of the United Kingdoms Prime Minister when Robert Walpole moves in. ... September 12 is the 255th day of the year (256th in leap years). ... 1806 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor and in former times Chancellor of England, is one of the most senior and important functionaries in the government of the United Kingdom. ... For alternative meanings see: Norfolk (disambiguation) Norfolk (pronounced NOR-fk) is a low-lying county in East Anglia in the east of southern England. ...

In 1748 Thurlow entered Caius College, Cambridge, but an act of insubordination necessitated his leaving Cambridge without a degree (1751). He was for some time articled to a solicitor in Lincoln's Inn along with the poet Cowper, but in 1754 was called to the bar at the Inner Temple, and subsequently went on the western circuit, at first with little success. But in the case of Luke Robinson v. The Earl of Winchelsea (1758) Thurlow came into collision with Sir Fletcher Norton, afterwards 1st Baron Grantley (1716-1789), then the terror of solicitors and the tyrant of the bar, and put down his arrogance with dignity and success. Events April 24 - A congress assembles at Aix-la-Chapelle with the intent to conclude the struggle known as the War of Austrian Succession - at October 18 - The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle is signed to end the war Adam Smith begins to deliver public lectures in Edinburgh Building of... Full name Gonville and Caius College Motto - Named after Edmund Gonville & John Caius Previous names Gonville Hall (1348), Gonville & Caius (1557) Established 1348 Sister College Brasenose College Master Neil McKendrick Location Trinity St Undergraduates 468 Graduates 291 Homepage Boatclub Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, generally known as Caius (though pronounced... Events Adam Smith is appointed professor of logic at the University of Glasgow March 31 - The future King George III of the United Kingdom succeeds his father as Prince of Wales. ... Part of Lincolns Inn drawn by Thomas Shepherd c. ... Portrait of William Cowper attributed to Romney. ... 1754 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... The Inner Temple is one of the four Inns of Court around the Royal Courts of Justice in London, England, to which barristers belong and where they are called to the bar. ... 1758 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... // Events Natchez, one of the oldest towns on the Mississippi, founded. ... 1789 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...

From this time his practice increased rapidly. In 1761 he was made a King's Counsel, through the influence of the Duchess of Queensberry. In 1762 he was elected a bencher of the Inner Temple. Thurlow now with some hesitation entered himself into the ranks of the Tory party. In 1768 he became member for Tarnworth. In 1769 the Douglas peerage case came on for hearing in the House of Lords, and Thurlow, who had drawn the pleadings some years before, led for the appellant in a speech of great analytic power. In 1770, as a recognition of his defence in the previous January of the expulsion of Wilkes, Thurlow was made Solicitor-General on the resignation of Dunning, and in the following year, after he had enhanced his reputation with the government by attacking the rights of juries in cases of libel and the liberty of the press, was raised to the Attorney-Generalship. 1761 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Queens Counsel (postnominal QC), during the reign of a male Sovereign known as Kings Counsel (KC), are barristers or, in Scotland, advocates appointed by Letters patent to be one of Her Majestys Counsel learned in the law. They do not constitute a separate order or degree of... 1762 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... The term Tory applied to the Tory Party, the ancestor of the modern UK Conservative Party. ... 1768 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... 1769 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... This article is about the British House of Lords. ... 1770 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Statue of Fred Wilkes (Fetter Lane London) Fred Wilkes (17 October 1727 – 26 December 1797) was an English radical, journalist and politician. ... The Solicitor General or Solicitor-General is a government position in several countries, dealing with legal affairs. ... In most common law jurisdictions, the Attorney General or Attorney-General, is the main legal adviser to the government, and in some jurisdictions may in addition have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions. ...

Thurlow's public life was as factious as his youth had been daring. His hatred of the American colonists, and his imprudent assertion that as Attorney-General he might set aside by scire facias as forfeited every charter in America; his speech in aggravation of punishment in the case of Home Tooke, when he argued that the prisoner ought to be pilloried, because imprisonment was no penalty to a man of sedentary habits and a fine would be paid by seditious subscription; and his opposition to all interference with the slave trade are characteristic.

In 1778 Thurlow became Lord Chancellor and Baron Thurlow of Ashfield, and took his seat in the House of Lords, where he soon acquired an almost dictatorial power. He opposed the economical and constitutional reforms proposed by Burke and Dunning. Under Rockingham he clung to the chancellorship, while conducting himself like a leader of the opposition. To the short-lived ministry of Shelburne he gave consistent support. Under the coalition of Fox and North (April to December 1783) the Great Seal was placed in commission, and Lord Loughborough was made first commissioner. But Thurlow, acting as the king's adviser, and in accordance with his wishes, harassed the new ministry, and ultimately secured the rejection of Fox's India Bill. The coalition was at once dissolved. Pitt accepted office, and Thurlow again became lord chancellor (23 December 1783). 1778 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor and in former times Chancellor of England, is one of the most senior and important functionaries in the government of the United Kingdom. ... This article is about the British House of Lords. ... Edmund Burke The Right Honourable Edmund Burke (January 12, 1729 – July 9, 1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator and political philosopher, who served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party. ... Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham (May 13, 1730 – July 1, 1782) was a British Whig statesman, most notable for his two terms as Whig Prime Minister of Great Britain. ... William Petty Fitzmaurice, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne (2 May 1737–7 May 1805), also known as the Earl of Shelburne (1761–1784), was a British statesman. ... The Right Honourable Charles James Fox (13 January 1749–13 September 1806) was a British Whig politician. ... Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford (April 13, 1732–August 5, 1792), more often known by his earlier title, Lord North, was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782, and a major actor in the American Revolution. ... 1783 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... William Pitt the Younger (28 May 1759–23 January 1806) was a British politician during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. ... December 23 is the 357th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (358th in leap years). ... 1783 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

At first he supported the government, but soon his overbearing temper asserted itself. Imprudently relying on the friendship of the king, and actuated by scarcely disguised enmity to Pitt, Thurlow passed rapidly from occasional acts of hostility to secret disaffection, and finally to open revolt. He delivered himself strongly against a bill, introduced without his privity, for the restoration to the heirs of attainted owners of estates forfeited in the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. Partly to please the king and queen, partly from dislike to Burke, and partly perhaps from a real belief in the groundlessness of the accusation, he supported Warren Hastings on every occasion with indecorous violence. His negotiations with the Whigs during the discussion of the Regency Bill (1788-19 February 1789) were designed to secure his seat on the woolsack in the event of Fox being called to power. The climax was reached in 1792, when he attacked Pitt's bill to establish a sinking fund for the redemption of the national debt, not on account of the economic objections to which it was liable, but on the trivial ground that it was an unconstitutional attempt to bind further parliaments. The bill was carried, but only by a narrow majority, and Pitt, feeling that co-operation with such a colleague was impossible, insisted successfully on his dismissal (15 June 1792). This article is not about the Jacobite Orthodox Church, nor is it about Jacobinism or the earlier Jacobean period. ... // Events May 11 - War of Austrian Succession: Battle of Fontenoy - At Fontenoy, French forces defeat an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army including the Black Watch June 4 – Frederick the Great destroys Austrian army at Hohenfriedberg August 19 - Beginning of the 45 Jacobite Rising at Glenfinnan September 12 - Francis I is elected... Warren Hastings (December 6, 1732 - August 22, 1818) was the first governor-general of British India, from 1773 to 1786. ... This article is about the British Whig party. ... 1788 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... February 19 is the 50th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1789 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... 1792 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... June 15 is the 166th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (167th in leap years), with 199 days remaining. ... 1792 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...

The ex-chancellor, who had a few days before been created Baron Thurlow of Thurlow, with remainder to his brothers and their male descendants, now retired into private life, and, with the exception of a futile intrigue, under the auspices of the Prince of Wales, for the formation of a ministry from which Pitt and Fox should be excluded, and in which the Earl of Moira should be premier and Thurlow chancellor (1797), finally abandoned hope of office. In 1795 he opposed the Treason and Sedition bills without success. In 1801 he spoke on behalf of Home Tooke, now his friend, when a bill was introduced to render a priest in orders ineligible for a seat in the House of Commons. His last recorded appearance in the House of Lords was in 1802. He now spent his time between his villa at Dulwich and various seaside resorts. He died at Brighton on 12 September 1806, and was buried in the Temple church. Thurlow was never married, but left three natural daughters, for whom he made a handsome provision. The title descended to his nephew, son of the Bishop of Durham. George IV (George Augustus Frederick) (12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Hanover from 29 January 1820. ... 1797 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... 1795 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... 1801 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... 1802 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Brighton on the southern Sussex coast is one of the largest and most famous seaside resorts in England. ... September 12 is the 255th day of the year (256th in leap years). ... 1806 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

Lord Thurlow was a master of a coarse caustic wit, which habitually in his private and too frequently in his public life displayed itself in profanity. He was a good classical scholar and made occasional translations in verse from Homer and Euripides. His judicial and his ecclesiastical patronage were wisely exercised; he was the patron of Dr Johnson and of Crabbe, and was the first to detect the great legal merits of Eldon. Bust of Homer in the British Museum For other uses, see Homer (disambiguation). ... Euripides (ca. ... Samuel Johnson circa 1772, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. ... George Crabbe (December 24, 1754 - February 3, 1832) was an English poet and naturalist. ... John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon (4 June 1751-13 January 1838), Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, was born at Newcastle. ...

Thurlow's personal appearance was striking. His dark complexion, harsh but regular features, severe and dignified demeanour, piercing black eyes and bushy eyebrows, doubtless contributed to his professional and political eminence and provoked the sarcasm of Fox that he looked wiser than any man ever was. Yet he was far from being an impostor. By intense though irregular application he had acquired a wide if not a profound knowledge of law. Clear-headed, self-confident and fluent, able at once to reason temperately and to assert strongly, capable of grasping, rapidly assimilating, and forcibly reproducing minute and complicated details, he possessed all the qualities which command success. His speeches in the trial of the Duchess of Kingston for bigamy are vigorous and effective, while his famous opening in the Douglas peerage case and his argument for the Crown in Campbell v. Hall show that he might have rendered high service to the judicial literature of his country had he relied more upon his own industry and less upon the learning of Hargrave and Kenyon.

He also wrote one of the shortest legal opinions ever.

This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain.
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John Dunning, 1st Baron Ashburton (1731 - 1783) was an English jurist and politician. ... Her Majestys Solicitor General for England and Wales, often known as the Solicitor General, is one of the Law Officers of the Crown, and the deputy of the Attorney General, whose duty is to advise the Crown and Cabinet on the law. ... Alexander Wedderburn, 1st Earl of Rosslyn (February 13, 1733 - January 2, 1805), Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, was the eldest son of Peter Wedderburn (a lord of session as Lord Chesterhall), and was born in East Lothian. ... Her Majestys Attorney General for England and Wales, usually known as the Attorney General, is the chief legal adviser of the Crown in England and Wales. ... Alexander Wedderburn, 1st Earl of Rosslyn (February 13, 1733 - January 2, 1805), Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, was the eldest son of Peter Wedderburn (a lord of session as Lord Chesterhall), and was born in East Lothian. ... Henry Bathurst, 2nd Earl Bathurst (1714-6 August 1794), was the eldest surviving son of the 1st Earl. ... The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor and in former times Chancellor of England, is one of the most senior and important functionaries in the government of the United Kingdom. ... The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor and in former times Chancellor of England, is one of the most senior and important functionaries in the government of the United Kingdom. ... The position of Lord High Steward of England, not to be confused with the Lord Steward, a court functionary, is the first of the Great Officers of State. ... Alexander Wedderburn, 1st Earl of Rosslyn (February 13, 1733 - January 2, 1805), Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, was the eldest son of Peter Wedderburn (a lord of session as Lord Chesterhall), and was born in East Lothian. ...

Baron Thurlow is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. ...