He entered Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar in 1824, studying conveyancing in John Tyrrell's chambers. He soon obtained a good practice as an equity draughtsman and before parliamentary committees, and in 1830 married Miss Charlotte Moor. In 1845 he became Q.C., and in 1847 was elected to parliament for the city of Oxford as a Liberal. In 1849 he was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster, and in 1851 was made Solicitor General for England and Wales and knighted, vacating the former position in 1852. When his party returned to power in 1853, he was raised to the bench as a Vice-Chancellor.
In 1868 he was made a Lord Justice of Appeal, but before the end of the year was selected by Mr Gladstone to be Lord Chancellor and was raised to the peerage as Baron Hatherley of Down Hatherley. He retired in 1872 owing to failing eyesight, but sat occasionally as a law lord. His wife's death in 1878 was a great blow, from which he never recovered, and he died in London on 10 July1881. Dean Hook said that Lord Hatherley, who was a sound and benevolent supporter of the Church of England, was the best man he had ever known. He was a particularly clear-headed lawyer, and his judgments, always delivered extempore, commanded the greatest confidence both with the public and the legal profession. He left no issue and the title became extinct on his death.
The Lord Chancellor is de facto speaker of the House of Lords.
The Lord Chancellor is a member of the Cabinet and heads a department known as the Lord Chancellor's Department (now the Department for Constitutional Affairs), responsible for the administration of the courts, the appointment of judges, etc.
Nevertheless, the Lord Chancellor has taken the judicial oath, and it is often said that the most important job of the Lord Chancellor is to preserve the independence of the judiciary, and to argue for the judiciary in the Cabinet.
The Lord Chancellor is a member of the Cabinet and heads a department known as the Lord Chancellor's Department, responsible for the administration of the courts, the appointment of judges, etc.
Although the Lord Chancellor is usually a senior lawyer rather than a judge, he upon appointment becomes president of the Appellate Committees of the House of Lords (which is a court and a house of Parliament) and (conventionally) of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the highest courts that exist in the United Kingdom.
The previous Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg refused to rule out sitting as a judge, and the radical proposals that came with his replacement are partly due to his refusal to take this step.