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William
Murray, 1st Earl Of Mansfield (1705 - 1793)
Judge,
was born at Scone in Perthshire, on the 2nd of March 1705. He
was a younger son of David Murray, teh Viscount Stormont (c.
1665 - 1731). William Murray was educated at Perth grammar school
and Westminster School, of which he was a kings scholar., Entering
Christ Church, Oxford, he graduated in 1727. A friend of the
family, Lord Foley, provided the funds for his legal training,
and he became a member of Lincolns Inn on his departure from
Oxford, being called to the bar in 1730.
He
was a good scholar and mixed with the best literary society,
being an intimate friend of Alexander Pope. His appearance in
some important Scottish appeal cases brought him into notice,
and in Scotland at least he acquired an immense reputation by
his appearance for the city of Edinburgh when it was threatened
with disfranchisement for the affair of the Porteous mob. His
English practice had as yet been scanty, but in 1737 a single
speech in a jury trial of note placed him at the head of the
bar, and from this time he had all he could attend to.
In
1738 he married Lady Elizabeth Finch, daughter of the Earl of
Winchelsea. His political career began in 1742 with his appointment
as solicitor-general. During the next fourteen years he was
one of the most conspicuous figures in the parliamentary history
of the time. By birth a Jacobite, by association a Tory, he
was nevertheless a Moderate, and his politics were really dominated
by his legal interests. Although holding an office of subordinate
rank, he was the chief defender of the government in the House
of Commons, and during the time that Pitt was in opposition
had to bear the brunt of his attacks. In, 1754 he became attorney-general,
and for the next two years acted as Leader of the House of Commons
under the administsration of the Duke of Newcastle. But in 1756,
when the government was evidently approaching its fall, an unexpected
vacancy occurred in the chief justiceship of the kings bench,
and he claimed the office, being at the same time raised to
the peerage as Baron Mansfield.
From this time the chief interest of his career
lies in his judicial work, but he did not wholly dissever himself
from politics. He became by a singular arrangement, only repeated
in the case of Lord Ellenborough, a member of the cabinet, and
remained in that position through various changes of administration
for nearly fifteen years, and, although he persistently refused
the chancellorship, he acted as Speaker of the House of Lords
while the Great Seal was in commission.
During the time of Pitts ascendancy he took
but little part in politics, but while Lord Bute was in power
his influence was very considerable, and seems mostly to have
been exerted in favor of a more moderate line of policy. He
was on the whole a supporter of the prerogative, but within
definite limits. Macaulay terms him, justly enough, the father
of modern Toryism, of Toryism modified to suit an order of things
in which the House of Commons is the most powerful body in the
state. During the stormy session of 1770 he came into violent
collision, with Chatham and Camden in the questions that arose
out of the Middlesex election and the trials for political libel;
and in the snbsequent years he was made the subject of the bitter
attacks of Junius, in which his early Jacobite connections,
and his apparent leanings to arbitrary power, were used against
him with extraordinary ability and virulence.
In 1776 he was created earl of Mansfield. In
1783, although he declined to re-enter the cabinet, he acted
as Speaker of the House of Lords during the coalition ministry,
and with this his political career may be said to have closed.
He continued to act as chief justice until his resignation in
June 1788, and after five years spent in retirement died on
the 20th of March 1793. He left no family, but his title had
been re-granted in 1792 with a direct remainder to his nephew
David Murray, the 7th Viscount Stormont. (1727I 796). The 2nd
Earl was ambassador to Vienna and then to Paris; he was secretary
of state for the southern department from 1779 to 1782, and
lord president of the council in 1783, and again from 1794 until
his death. In 1906 his descendant Alan David Murray (b. 1864)
became 6th Earl of Mansfield.
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